A small town, known as Old Lubbock, Lubbock, or North Town, was established about three miles to the east.

In 1890, the original Lubbock merged with Monterey, another small town south of the canyon. The merger included moving the original Lubbock's Nicolett Hotel across the canyon on rollers to the new townsite.

opened on the grounds of the Buddy Holly Center in 2013. The vision of the Buddy Holly Center is to discover art through music by celebrating legacy, culture and community.

Allison, drummer of the band "The Crickets," lived as a teenager and where he and Buddy Holly wrote many hits including, “That'll Be the Day.” The Buddy Holly Center, a historical site, has dual missions; preserving, collecting and promoting the legacy of Buddy Holly and the music of Lubbock and West Texas, as well as providing exhibits on Contemporary Visual Arts and Music, for the purpose of educating and entertaining the public.

The Plaza is open to the public dawn to dusk, year round.

Lubbock is home to Texas Tech University, the sixth-largest college by enrollment in the state.

Lubbock High School has been recognized for three consecutive years by Newsweek as one of the top high schools in the United States based in part on its international baccalaureate program.

As early as 1884, a federal post office existed in Yellow House Canyon.

The city is located in the northwestern part of the state, a region known historically and geographically as the Llano Estacado and ecologically is part of the southern end of the High Plains.

According to a 2015 Census estimate, Lubbock had a population of 249,042, Lubbock's nickname, "Hub City", derives from it being the economic, educational, and health care hub of the multicounty region, north of the Permian Basin and south of the Texas Panhandle, commonly called the South Plains.