Yoakum County Genealogy

Originally settled by a family named Miller, it wasn't until 1905 when W. J. Luna moved his family to what is now Plains.

Note: All map locations are approximate.

Mr. Luna was the founder of the town and took responsibility for naming it. He donated land for both the Yoakum County Cemetery and the Plains City Cemetery. Mary Luna, W.J.'s wife was the first interment. In 1906 Luna established a store and applied for a post office which was soon granted.

With the organization of Yoakum County in 1907, Plains was the overwhelming choice for county seat.

A newspaper with the no-nonsense name of Yoakum County News appeared in 1910 and twenty one years later a second newspaper arrived. Mrs. Dovie Moreland was the editor publisher of the Yoakum County Review. The paper later merged with the Plains Record in the early 1960s.

Mrs. Marion McGinty and other bibliophiles collected a mobile "bookshelf" for the citizens - moving the location to various homes to insure circulation. The was the germ that evolved into a county library system.

Although the Sulphur Springs are now pumped dry, the creek which they fed has been turned into a public park.

Without a railroad, Plains was operating at a disadvantage, but when oil was discovered in the mid 930s, it insured the town's survival.

From a meager population of 150 in the late 1930s, Plains tripled its population in less than ten years. By 1980 it was around 1,500 - a figure that the town seems comfortable with.

A historical oddity in town is a 1903 "bonus shack" now operating as a museum. Early settlers used similar buildings to establish their claim to the land.

The Yoakum County Courthouse, located in Plains.Plains, the county seat of Yoakum County, is on U.S. Highway 82 thirteen miles east of the New Mexico border and fifty-nine miles southwest of Lubbock in the central part of the county. The area was first settled by a family named Miller, who claimed land as a homestead in the late 1800s. In 1905 the W. J. Luna family moved to Sulphur Draw which extends through the site of Plains. Luna founded and named the town and donated a lot in the townsite to each voter. He also donated land for the Yoakum County Cemetery and the Plains Cemetery, in which his wife, Mary, was the first person to be buried. Luna established a store and in 1906 a post office, to which mail was routed through Gomez.