A predecessor of present Lubbock, this area became the focus of a heated dispute in 1890 among three factions led by W.D. Crump, W.E. Rayner, and Frank Wheelock as they competed to found the county seat while chiefly seeking to organize the county rather than promote long-established towns. During the rivalry, two settlements were established. The Crump faction, later joined by the Wheelock group and several financial backers, founded Old Lubbock here. Known as North Town because it lay north of Yellow House Canyon, it occupied section 7, block A, bounded by the present streets of Quirt, Ash, Erskine, and Kent. It soon reached about 50 inhabitants and had a reported 37 buildings, including the Nicolett Hotel, regarded as the county's most historic building. Rayner's competing settlement south of the canyon was named Monterey and popularly called South Town. Despite the contest, the factions avoided the lasting bitterness common in such struggles, and on December 19, 1890, they united in a compromise unique in West Texas history that resulted in the founding of the city of Lubbock on its present site.