victory. ds on c-spanerwor twos book tv. year, c-span is exploring american history across the country. next, a recent visit to lubbock, texas. americanatching history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> while in lubbock, we took a of the city with mayor polk. >> what are some of the places we will see today? >> downtown lubbock arts

district. hall, which is being built with private dollars, texas tech. >> are you ready to go? let's do it. the 1880's, to ,ommunities along the canyon when they merged, neither one named lubbock. it took lubbock as their name. they merged and picked up some of the buildings, because they were would holdings built on platforms, and they pick them up and move them to what would be

downtown today. this is the deeper district. the entertainment district, live music, there is a theater up or on our right, which was a movie theater at one time that has been saved, and it has live music. the blue light has live music all but two nights he year. in front of us is buddy holly hall. this is a privately funded, $150 million performing arts center. buddy holly was -- is credited as elvis presley and a few others and inventing rock and roll. he had a very short career in the late 1950's. but the beatles claim buddy holly was their influence. withan't kick a rock musicians, particularly with rock and rollers who talk about what buddy holly means to them. just a good old lubbock boy. so guetta goodacre is also a lubbockite. she did the sculpture at the

vietnam war memorial in washington, d.c. a lot of her pieces are on the texas tech campus. in 1923, the texas state legislature decided they needed a university. in west texas come in the panhandle. they didn't have lubbock was one. only 6600 people at the time. amarillo was much larger. us,nview, which is north of is 25,000 citizens today, were we are 10 times its size. plainview was larger than lubbock at that time. so was snyder. but there was a very influential state senator from lubbock named bledsoe. he and others made certain that the legislature chose what they the texas technical college, to be in lubbock.

it is not even 100 years old yet. as colleges go, it is very young. this is the administration building. this was built in a prairie in the 1920's. the statue that we can see the back of right there is preston smith. it was a texas governor who hails from lubbock. the airport is named for him. there is an elementary school named after him, but he was a big part of our history in west texas. you can see to our right, these are cotton fields. you are in the largest contiguous cotton patch in the world. so we are on a plateau 3200 feet above sea level. so we have warm days in the summer, but cool nights. the cotton loves our climate. and so cotton is being planted as we speak. we harvested it around halloween. and the wind power museum is to our right. we would not be here without windmills, because we do not have any surface water. if you think about this flat

plateau we live on, we had to bring water from the aquifer, from underneath the ground, to, that is what we irrigate cotton with, or irrigate corn with or soybeans, or carrots or whatever it is that we grow. so we would not be here without wind power. >> how many windmills are utilized here to help around lubbock? >> somewhere a little north of 15% of our power is wind generated. that will continue to go up. texas is a little bit below that as a state. there is a lot of wind energy still being brought online. >> so as we wrap it up here, what would you like folks to know about lubbock? >> i think lubbock is a

-- i think our efforts to become more attractive to millennials are starting to pay off. our downtown, it is hard to see the progress, but i think if you come back in five years, you will see a completely different downtown. it is a city with a can-do attitude. >> it is a great pleasure to have you, so thank you very much for your time. we appreciate it. announcer: our staff recently traveled to love it texas to learn about its rich history. .earn more at c-span.org you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. each week, american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn about american history. our, we continue