National Ranching Heritage Center,Silent Wings Museum,American Wind Power Center, International Textile Center,Lubbock Lake Landmark

National Ranching Heritage Center

Let the Lubbock Regency take you back in time with our made-to-order tours. The National Ranching Heritage Center is dedicated to the preservation of a by-gone era. Experience life as it was for the early ranching pioneers. Visit the unique exhibits as well as early dwellings, homes and other structures necessary to maintain life on the ranch.

The Silent Wings Museum is dedicated to telling the history of the American military glider program. The Silent Wings Museum opened in Terrell, Texas in 1984 as a project of the National World War II Glider Pilots Association, Inc. The Museum collection was transferred to the City of Lubbock in September 2000 and relocated to the Lubbock International Airport grounds in February 2001. A newly renovated facility will open to the public on October 19, 2002. The Museum building in Lubbock served as the Lubbock airport terminal from its construction in 1949 until the opening of the Lubbock International Airport in 1976.

The International Textile Center, an auxiliary of Texas Tech University, conducts textile research, testing, and evaluation of:

cotton, animal fibers, man-made fibers, and exotic fibers such as carbon and ceramics;
the yarns and fabrics made from these fibers;
textile processing systems;
dyeing and finishing;
fabric treatments for specific purposes such as flame and high temperature resistance.

The ITC is located on 17 acres on the eastern perimeter of Lubbock in a modern 110,000 square-foot facility configured to serve research needs ranging from small-scale investigations to large-scale manufacturing.

Lubbock Lake Landmark is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a designated National Historic and State Archeological Landmark.

The Museum of Texas Tech University has led the efforts of preservation, research, and interpretation of the Landmark since its discovery in 1936.

The Museum of Texas Tech University

The Museum is an educational, scientific, cultural, and research element of Texas Tech University. It consists of several components: the main Museum building, the Moody Planetarium, the Natural Science Research Laboratory, the research and educational elements of the Lubbock Lake Landmark, and the Val Verde County research site

Between 1854, the year Daniel Halladay, a New England machinist, obtained the first American windmill patent, and 1920, over 700 companies manufactured some type of windmill. Prior to 1920, tens of thousands of windmills were sold and erected across the Great Plains.

Windmills from that period are ones that survived the great scrap metal drives of both World Wars. Because of their rarity, information on those early windmills is generally limited to pictures. The story of its development and the effect the windmill had on early pioneers is seldom told, but was the windmill, more than any other invention, that helped settle the West.

The windmill gave railroads access to underground water, permitted ranchers to fence and selectively breed cattle and farmers to live on land where there were no rivers, streams, or lakes. This history can now be told in a permanent facility dedicated to the preservation of the American-style windmill.

For more information, contact

Teresa Byrd, Director of Sales

Lubbock Regency

806-745-2208