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Upcoming Hub City events
THURSDAY
• Summer Showcase Concert Series, Plain Brown Wrapper at Buddy Holly Center, 5:30 p.m.
• Patio Nights, Jacob Esary at McPherson Cellars, 6 p.m.
FRIDAY
• SPiVEY at Two Docs Brewing Company, 7 p.m.
• Chris Hudgins at Cotton Court Hotel, The Midnight Shift, 7 p.m.
• Carson Jeffrey at The Blue Light Live, 8 p.m.
SATURDAY
• City Parks Scavenger Hunt at City of Lubbock Parks & Rec
• Lubbock Downtown Farmers Market, Buddy Holly Avenue and 19th Street, 9 a.m.
• Stay Active in the Plaza at Buddy And Maria Elena Holly Plaza, 9 a.m.
• Ranch Host Saturdays at National Ranching Heritage Center, 10 a.m.
Outdoor space at the Thunderbird Hotel in Marfa.
Kate Berry/Thunderbird Hotel
In 1929, a used-car salesman in Waco named Edgar Lee Torrance opened what would become the first motel chain in America. With its cheesy white-stucco wink to the Alamo’s facade, Torrance’s Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts featured individual carports for guests, telephones in each room, and “a Beautyrest mattress on every bed,” according to newspaper advertisements.
The chain’s eventual expansion to twenty courts in six Southern states predated the nation’s first Holiday Inn, which didn’t open until 1952, and Howard Johnson’s, which was founded in 1954. Torrance helped cement Texas’s reputation as a state in love with its open roads and far-flung destinations. The marketing slogan was Torrance’s idea of Texas shorthand: “Remember the Alamo Plaza.”
At a media event hosted at 1:30 p.m. on April 8, officials of the new Cotton Court Hotel, which opened in September 2020, provided insight as to what inspired the design of the hotel. Weâre excited to introduce our wonderful property to you,â Marcus Lander, general manager with Valencia Hotel Group, said.
Jessica Hall, director of sales and marketing at the Cotton Court Hotel and a Lubbock native, led the media on a tour of the facility and said Valencia Hotel Group was honored to be a part of the downtown revitalization plan in Lubbock.
The space where the hotel sits used to be a parking lot, Hall said.