A Parked Cadillac Served as Hockley County's Opening Meeting Room

Before Hockley County had a courthouse, its new leaders met in a Cadillac parked on the planned courthouse square. County government began in a car, not a grand room. From that car, they ordered a 16-by-32-foot wooden courthouse, a well, and a windmill. They needed a room, water, and wind power before the county seat could feel like one.

The wooden courthouse went up in 1921. Hockley City became Levelland in 1922. A new courthouse followed in 1923 and later became the Stroud Hotel. The square was still rough enough in those years to hold a black-eyed-pea patch.

The courthouse standing there now was done in 1928. Its style is Classical Revival. The limestone building has tall Ionic pilasters, carved corbels, and a low wall along the roof made to look like a railing.

The polished building came after a parked Cadillac, a small wooden room, a windmill, and a pea patch. The square did not arrive finished. It grew one plain need and one public choice at a time.