Idalou, Texas

Everything Idalou is known for

8 songs mention this city 1 artist from here

Music in Idalou

Songs About Idalou

Amarillo Highway (For Dave Hickey)
Terry Allen
54%
"side bet in Idalou"
Amarillo Highway
Emily Nenni
54%
"side bet in Idalou"
Idalou
Josh Abbott Band
50%
I'll sing about mine
Josh Abbott Band
45%
amarillo highway
terry allen
29%
I’ll Sing About Mine
Josh Abbott Band
8%
"In my hometown Population just a few thousand"
I’ve Been Everywhere...In Texas
Brian Burns
6%
"Idalou"
Amarillo Highway
Robert Earl Keen
2%
"A side bet in Idalou"

Artists From Idalou

J
Josh Abbott
country Pop: 50

Musical Heritage

Terry Allen RoadyGoat

Lubbock gave the world Buddy Holly. It also gave the world Terry Allen — and Terry Allen never once let the place off the hook. In 1979 he came home to cut a record with Lubbock players and called it "Lubbock (on everything)." You know his songs even if the name's new to you: "Amarillo Highway" is a Texas country standard, and Little Feat cut his "New Delhi Freight Train" first. He rolls with the Panhandle Mystery Band — his son Bukka, pedal-steel man Lloyd Maines, Charlie Sexton on guitar. He's a Guggenheim fellow and a painter they hang in museums, and if you caught "Killers of the Flower Moon," that was Terry and his wife Jo Harvey up on screen. Texas Tech is putting up a whole center with their names on it. Not bad for a kid who met Elvis one of the six nights the King played Lubbock.

RoadyGoat → · 11.7 mi away

Amanda Shires RoadyGoat

Growing up in Lubbock, Amanda Shires watched Bobbie Nelson play piano alongside Willie and the band — and then she went and built her own outlaw résumé the bold way. She climbed onstage uninvited at a Billy Joe Shaver show, fiddle in hand, and played her way right into his band. Seven solo albums followed, Down Fell the Doves and My Piece of Land among them. She won a Grammy for her work in the 400 Unit, the band fronted by her husband Jason Isbell, and the two of them cut the duet "The Problem" in 2020. Back in 2017 she pulled together the Highwomen with Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, and Natalie Hemby. Lubbock breeds them stubborn. Shires wears it well.

RoadyGoat → · 11.7 mi away

Buddy Holly Center RoadyGoat

Out on the West Texas Walk of Fame in Lubbock, there's a bronze man about your size, a Fender slung across him, frozen mid-song. That's Buddy Holly, cast in metal right where he came up. The center behind him lives in the old Worth and Denver Depot — a train station somebody gutted and rebuilt into a museum, one of the better examples of a depot getting a second life. Inside, the permanent exhibit walks his whole story, start to finish. Not the highlight reel — the life. You come to Lubbock, you can stand eye to eye with the statue, then step inside and meet the man it was cast from. Same town, same streets, same flat sky he grew up under. He never really left it.

RoadyGoat → · 11.7 mi away

Lubbock's Pancho Clos RoadyGoat

In Lubbock, Santa comes in a poncho. They call him Pancho Clos — spelled without the a-u-s, so nobody mixes him up with the other fella. It started back in nineteen seventy-one, when three men, Agustin Medina, Jesse Reyes, and Bidal Aguero, heard a Tucson musician named Lalo Guerrero's Spanglish take on "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and brought the idea to the local American GI Forum, the Hispanic veterans group. Every year, the Sunday before Christmas, Rogers Park filled up and the kids went home with gifts. For close to thirty years, a man named Julian Perez was Pancho Clos — salt-and-pepper beard, sombrero big as a wagon wheel, the brightest poncho you ever saw. He passed in twenty-eighteen. But the beard gets handed down. Somebody puts it on every year.

RoadyGoat → · 11.7 mi away

History of Idalou

Idalou, TX RoadyGoat

Idalou, Texas, it's a place where the land stretches out forever, almost a painting in browns and blues under that big Texas sky. You can feel the peace out here, see it in the friendly waves you get driving down the road. Cotton's still king, same as it ever was, though folks remember the Dust Bowl, how it nearly choked the life out of everything. But Idalou’s got grit, always has.

Farming on a Shrinking Aquifer RoadyGoat

Every plant in these fields needs water, and out here most of it comes from underground. Beneath the High Plains lies the Ogallala Aquifer, a vast layer of water-soaked rock and sand that stretches under eight states. For generations, farmers have pumped it up to irrigate cotton. The trouble is that the Ogallala fills incredibly slowly, refilled only by what little rain soaks down, and we are pumping it out far faster than nature can replace it. In heavily used areas the water level has already dropped more than 100 feet, and once that ancient water is gone, it does not come back in any human lifetime. So this is where farming meets engineering. Growers are switching to drip irrigation that drops water right at the roots, planting drought-tolerant cotton bred to thrive on less, and using precision tools like drones and buried soil-moisture sensors to water only where the field is actually dry. The goal is simple to say and hard to do: grow more cotton with less water, and make the aquifer last.

9.0 mi away

The Biggest Cotton Patch in the World RoadyGoat

Look out at the flat land around Lubbock and you are looking at what is often called the largest contiguous cotton patch in the world. Contiguous is the key word: it means one huge, unbroken stretch, mile after mile of cotton country with no big gap in the middle. Plenty of places grow cotton, but few grow it shoulder to shoulder across the High Plains the way this region does. And it adds up. Texas is the top cotton-producing state in the entire United States, growing roughly a third of the national crop in a typical year, and more in some years. That is an astonishing share for one state. The reasons are the wide open land, the sunny climate, and a long history of farmers who learned to coax fiber out of a tough, semi-dry plateau. So when you see those rows running clear to the horizon, that is not just a pretty view. That is one of the great agricultural engines of the country, and it starts right here under the West Texas sky.

9.1 mi away

Idalou Cemetery

1920

John William Turner, Jr. and his wife, Mary Alice, deeded two acres of their farm as a burial ground in 1920. At this time, the Idalou Cemetery Association was formed. The first interment was for the Turners' infant nephew, Weldon Fred Turner, whose grave is indicated by a homemade marker. In May 1921, C.J. and Mary Hallmark buried their infant son C.J., and 13-year-old Mable Gladis Andrews was interred in July. In 1928, the Turners and Selma Graves donate more land to the burial ground. Over the next decades, the association accepted additional land donations, which increased the cemetery to its present size of eight acres. In the early twenty-first century, a non-denominational memorial chapel named after Madison Sowder (1927-2007), longtime trustee, was added.
 Early leaders who served on the cemetery association include E.T. Daniell, W.M. Weaver and H.W. Lasater. Throughout its history, the cemetery has always been a public entity, owned and operated by the community, with volunteers and families attending workdays to help maintain the site.
 Today, the cemetery's features include curbed plots and numerous upright shoulder stones typical of 20th century grave marker designs, and the open prairie landscape highlights native plantings. Idalou is the final resting place of veterans of all branches of the U.S. military who served in peacetime and in all conflicts since World War I. Descendants from all over the United States are buried in the numerous traditional family plots located here. The cemetery is a link to the many generations who have contributed to the history of Idalou. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002

Historical Marker →

Lubbock County

-12000

Lubbock County is located in Northwest Texas on the Southern High Plains, within the larger Great Plains of the western United States. The center of the county lies at 33°35' north latitude and 101°52' west longitude. Lubbock, its largest city, is 327 miles northwest of Dallas and 122 miles south of Amarillo. The county measures 893 square miles of flat tableland sloping gently from northwest to southeast, with elevations ranging from 2,900 to 3,400 feet. Its soils are mainly brown to reddish-brown loams and sandy loams, with smaller areas of grayish-brown, silty clay loams. These overlie a clay subsoil and, beneath that, at from two to three feet from the surface, a hardpan of caliche made of calcium carbonate. This caliche forms the Caprock , which has generally prevented streams from cutting their way through the area. Beneath the caliche zone lie beds of water-filled sand of varying thickness but averaging about 300 feet; these make up a part of the great Ogallala Aquifer, formed some ten million years ago as great rivers deposited sand from the Rocky Mountains over an area extending several hundred miles east of the mountains, from what is now Canada to the South Plains of Texas. In 1968 there were 922 small, wind-scoured lakes called playas dotting the county and providing refuge for wildfowl. These are formed by runoff from rainwater and range in size from less than an acre to more than fifty acres. Grasses are predominantly buffalo and blue grama, and in summer there is a profusion of wildflowers, including daisies, buttercups, verbena, and Indian paintbrush, together with scattered yucca and catclaw. Before its settlement the county was treeless, except for cottonwoods and hackberries in the canyons. In later times Chinese elms, oaks, pines, cedars, and a few other trees were introduced, along with mesquite in the nineteenth century. The county is classed as semiarid; its average annual rainfall is 18.41 inches, most of which occurs during the growing season of 208 days. The average minimum temperature in January is 25° F, and the maximum in July averages 92°. Lubbock County is one of the oldest inhabited places in the state, if not the oldest. In the northern part of the city of Lubbock is the archeological site known as the Lubbock Lake Site, the first archeological site in Texas to be entered on the National Register of Historic Places ( see LUBBOCK LAKE NATIONAL HISTORIC AND STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL LANDMARK ). There, in Yellow House Canyon , preserved in the twenty-foot wall of a dry lakebed, lies one of the very few known records of human habitation in Texas reaching back uninterrupted for at least 12,000 years. There Paleo-Indians camped and hunted the elephant, camel, bison, giant bear, and prehistoric horse, all long since extinct. Although the evidence is not conclusive, some authorities believe Francisco Vásquez de Coronado was the first Spaniard to visit the lake, during his famous expedition of 1540. In 1629 Father Juan de Salas led an expedition that went down Black Water Draw to Yellow House Canyon on its way from Santa Fe to the South Concho River. In 1650 another expedition commanded by captains Hernán Martín and Diego del Castillo used the same route, as did Capt. Diego de Guadalajara four years later. Other Spanish expeditions traveled this same route and on their maps gave the name La Punta de Agua to the Lubbock Lake Site, which is now in Mackenzie Park . From 10,000 B.C. to about A.D. 1000 the plains were inhabited by bands of Indians who lived off the land. When the Spaniards reached the plains they found tribes they called Quecheros or Teyas, probably ancestors of the Apaches. About 1700 the Comanches (from a Ute word meaning "enemy") came onto the South Plains with their newly acquired horses. They quickly came to dominate an area stretching from north of the Red River south to the Edwards Plateau , westward to New Mexico, and as far east as the Brazos River. The area of West Texas

Tsha Handbook → · 8.8 mi away

South Plains Army Air Field

1942

During World War II, nine preliminary and advanced military glider pilot training fields operated in Texas; one of the most prominent sites was located here. The U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) leased Lubbock Municipal Airport, and with help from the City of Lubbock expanded it for glider training. Opened in October 1942, the site was initially named South Plains Army Flying School, and later renamed South Plains Army Air Field (SPAAF). The mission of SPAAF was ground and advanced flight training for glider pilots who flew the “Waco CG-4A” glider––the USAAF's primary glider during the war. During its tenure, SPAAF trained nearly 80% of America’s combat glider pilots who served in major operations, such as Market Garden (Invasion of the Netherlands), Varsity (Invasion of Germany) and overlord (the “D-day” Allied Invasion of Normandy, France). SPAAF closed on April 1, 1945, more than a month before victory in Europe was declared. Designated surplus, the site was transferred to the War Assets Administration in December 1947. In 1949 the airfield returned to the City of Lubbock for municipal use, and in 1950 the city built a modern air terminal. Regional combat glider training facilities –– located in the Texas panhandle and South Plains –– were vital components of U.S. Military force projection capability during the war. In addition, the creation and maintenance of these bases contributed significantly to local economies during the war. In 1971, former glider pilots formed the National World War II Glider Pilots Association, Inc., providing the framework for the preservation of the history of the U.S. Combat Glider Program. Today, a key element in telling this story is the Silent Wings Museum, moved to this site and opened in October 2002.

Historical Marker → · 8.6 mi away

Bradford Knapp

1870

(1870-1938) Known for his leadership in the field of agricultural education, Bradford Knapp served as first director of the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service and helped plan and carry out World War I overseas food production for the Agriculture Department. He later served as Dean of Agriculture at the University of Arkansas (1920-23), and as the president of the universities now known as Oklahoma State (1923-28), Auburn (1928-32), and Texas Tech (1932-38). Recorded - 1984

Historical Marker → · 10.0 mi away

Moore, Patsy L. Smith

1946

Pat Moore, attorney and judge, was born on January 27, 1924, near Lorenzo, Texas, the daughter of W. L. and Gladys Smith. At the age of four she contracted polio and thereafter wore leg braces and used a crutch and cane for walking. She attended public schools in Ralls and graduated from Texas Tech University. She applied for admission to Southern Methodist University law school in 1946 and was refused admittance to the day school because she was a woman. Undaunted, she enrolled in the evening school and, on the basis of her academic record, was permitted to transfer to the day school after one semester. She received her degree in 1949 and passed the bar examination shortly afterward. She joined a Lubbock law firm and was the city's first woman attorney. She then opened her own law office and married James F. Moore, a former law school classmate and practicing attorney in September 1950. From 1952 to 1956 she was cochairman of the Texas Bar Association State Legal Aid Commission and helped establish the Lubbock County Legal Aid Commission. In 1953 she became the first woman president of the Lubbock County Bar Association, and four years later she was elected judge of Lubbock County Court at Law, Number Two. In 1968 she was elected the first woman judge of the Seventy-Second District Court (Crosby and Lubbock counties). Judge Moore was committed to civic work for the underprivileged and helped establish a clinic for the intellectually disabled in Lubbock. She was named Woman of the Year by the Lubbock Altrusa Club in 1965, and in 1972 she received the Southern Methodist University Woman of Achievement Award. She died on January 11, 1975, survived by her husband, son, and daughter.

Tsha Handbook → · 8.4 mi away

Things to Do in Idalou

historical 11.2 mi away
Buddy Holly Center

Lubbock was a dusty cotton town when a skinny kid named Charles Hardin Holley picked up a guitar in the nineteen fifties and figured out how to make rock and…
historical 11.0 mi away
Buddy Holly Center

Museum dedicated to Lubbock's most famous son. The day the music died.
quirky 14.5 mi away
Ozymandias On The Plains

A pair of giant legs — and nothing else — standing in a Lubbock field. Shelley's poem made real.

Everything Near Idalou

195 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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