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- Lea County Courthouse
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- New Mexico Centennial
Lovington and Hobbs vie for the honor of becoming the Lea County Seat.
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Transcript
Shortly after New Mexico’s bid for statehood became reality in 1912, the town of Lovington began to emerge as a viable community in Southeast New Mexico, incorporating as a village in 1917. Construction began on the new Lea County courthouse the following year; but Lovington’s dominant status was soon challenged by the newly established ranching and farming community of Hobbs to the south. Hobbs was a “sprawling, brawling gathering of oil people and merchants” from four former towns which had grown to over 15,000 people by 1918. Lea County residents in Lovington and Hobbs began pushing to divide Lea County as the two towns competed to become the county seat. Hobbs residents resented having to travel to small, rural Lovington to conduct county business, and the gap between the two communities continued to widen as Hobbs’s right to claim the county courthouse grew. Measures to divide...
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