Lamar Building

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Lamar Building. Now, every good story needs a foundation, and this one starts with a hotel. The year was 1908, and the C.

B. Livestock Company put up the Crosbyton Inn, the first hotel in these parts, built with a purpose: promote the area for cotton farming. A two-story frame building, and by all accounts it became a mecca for travelers and land buyers.

People coming out to see what this patch of Texas had to offer, sizing up the land, making deals. That hotel was doing exactly what it was built to do. Then 1912 rolls around, and fire gets involved.

The hotel burned. But here's the part worth noting: they didn't walk away from the spot. They rebuilt right over the original basement.

That old foundation held on. The rebuilt hotel stood until sometime in the 1920s, when it was razed. Gone.

Just the ground left, and whatever memories those walls had soaked up over the years. But the story of this particular piece of Crosbyton wasn't finished. In 1926, E.

H. Hendricks erected a brick office and apartment building on the site. Brick this time.

Something meant to last. And it did last long enough that in 1944, W. P.

Lamar purchased it and gave it a new name: the Lamar Building. Now, W. P.

Lamar, born in 1889 and gone by 1946, was a farmer and a businessman, and the son of a pioneer of Crosby County. The pioneer's son, putting his name on a building that stood where the very first hotel in town once welcomed strangers coming to see what this country was worth. That's a long arc, from the C.

B. Livestock Company's hopeful little frame hotel to a brick building bearing a pioneer family's name. The ground underneath it all never changed.

What the marker says

Site of Crosbyton Inn, first hotel here, built 1908, by C. B. Livestock Company to help promote area for cotton farming. A two-story frame building, it was mecca for travelers and land buyers. After fire in 1912, hotel rebuilt over original basement. It was razed in 1920s. A brick office and apartment building was erected by E. H. Hendricks in 1926; purchased 1944 by W. P. Lamar and renamed Lamar Building. Lamar (1889-1946), farmer, businessman, was son of pioneer of Crosby County. (1967)