Community leaders from Plainview and Hale Center couldn’t have been more diametrically opposed in 1908 when it came to building a new courthouse.
As reflected in news accounts leading up to an Oct. 3, 1908, bond election and subsequent court case, the primary arguments between the two camps were clear.
Plainview leaders felt that the county had long outgrown its 1892 courthouse and needed a fine new structure more reflective of a progressive, growing community. In fact, a week before county voters would go to the polls to decide the issue, the Hale County Herald observed, “Our present dinky frame courthouse, the first building noticed by a stranger on arriving on the square in Plainview, is an eyesore to the town and a drawback to the development of the county.”
Civic leaders from Hale Center and other communities in the central and southern half of the county had an entirely different take on the situation. In fact, according to later court filings, their general consensus was that Plainview was making a preemptive strike to forestall any future attempt at moving the county seat to a more central, sensible and accessible location.
With it situated at the center of the county, many in Hale Center felt their town was the logical spot for the seat of county government.
And, with the pending expansion of the Santa Fe Railway through Hale Center and on to Lubbock, it was generally accepted that those areas would soon experience rapid population growth and economic development. To prove their point, they pointed to Plain view, which they said had become a boomtown almost overnight with the arrival of the railroad a year earlier.
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