Earth, TX

Earth is a Lamb County city in West Texas, about 70 miles northwest of Lubbock, where State Highway 70 meets Farm Road 1055. The city counted 897 people in 2023. William E. Halsell laid out the townsite in 1924, and postal authorities rejected an earlier name before residents settled on Earth. The post office opened on May 25, 1925. Local accounts connect the name to the fertile soil around town, an apt detail for a community built in a farming region.

Farming and water shaped what followed. Irrigation helped expand agriculture, and Plant X, an electric generating station three miles south, supported the area's growth; Earth reached a population peak of 1,512 in 1980. Today Springlake-Earth ISD ties the city to nearby Springlake and surrounding rural communities, with a school and public library on campus. The annual Earth Amateur Rodeo, baseball park, swimming pool, Veterans Wall, churches, and farm-supply businesses give the name ordinary local places to land. The local scoop is a West Texas farming city with a one-word name, a single traffic-light intersection, and a school-and-rodeo center of gravity.