Ector County, Texas - 125 Years of History

ECTOR COUNTY, TEXAS 

125 Years of History 

by Glenn Justice 

A publication of

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ECTOR COUNTY, TEXAS 

125 Years of History 

By Glenn Justice 

A publication of Ector County 

Historical Publishing Network 

A division of Lammert Incorporated 

San Antonio, Texas

Odessans gathered to view the Pliska Aeroplane at a July 4, 1912, celebration. John W. Pliska, who built the plane, was a blacksmith in Midland, Texas. He and a friend hauled the 

plane to Odessa on a truck. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE PERMIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY ARCHIVAL COLLECTION, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS OF THE PERMIAN BASIN. ODESSA, TEXAS. 

First Edition 

Copyright © 2011 Historical Publishing Network 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing 

from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Historical Publishing Network, 11535 Galm Road, Suite 101, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (800) 749-9790. 

ISBN: 9781935377580 

Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2011937876 

Ector County, Texas: 125 Years of History 

author: Glenn Justice 

contributing writer for sharing the heritage: Eric Dabney 

Historical Publishing Network 

president: 

project manager: 

administration: 

book sales: 

production: 

Ron Lammert 

Wynn Buck 

Donna M. Mata 

Melissa G. Quinn 

Dee Steidle 

Colin Hart 

Evelyn Hart 

Glenda Tarazon Krouse 

Omar Wright 

2 ✦ ECTOR COUNTY, TEXAS ~ 125 YEARS OF HISTORY

CONTENTS 

4 CHAPTER ONE The Land and Early People 

8 CHAPTER TWO Odessa: Cow Town to Boom Town 

53 CHAPTER THREE Ector County Oil Fields and Communities 

66 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

67 INDEX 

69 SHARING THE HERITAGE 

189 SPONSORS 

191 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

191 ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHY 

Contents ✦ 3

C HAPTER 

O NE 

THE LAND AND EARLY PEOPLE 

Monahans Sandhills State Park is 

made up of 3,840 acres of sand 

dunes. The park is only a small 

portion of a dune field that extends 

about 200 miles from south of 

Monahans westward and north into 

New Mexico. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARTHA EDWARDS. 

Ector County is one of some seventeen west Texas counties located in the Permian Basin region. The 

Permian Basin is approximately 250 miles wide and 300 miles long, stretching from west Texas into 

eastern New Mexico. The basin covers more than 100,000 square miles and got its name from a deep 

basin located beneath the waters of an ancient ocean known as the Permian Sea. A vast body of water, 

this primeval sea once covered a great deal of western North America about 250,000 years ago. While in 

some places the ocean depths reached 2,000 feet, today’s Ector County lay in a more shallow central 

uplifted area on the sea floor. When the Permian Sea receded, the sea floor surfaced as the dry land 

of the county we know today. Beneath the surface of this new terra firma the heavy pressures of the sea 

aided the creation of rich hydrocarbon deposits in shallow sandstone and carbonate formations that 

would produce the oil and natural gas reserves that drives the economy of the Permian Basin today. Ector 

County covers some 902 square miles and is bordered by Winkler, Andrews, Midland, Crane and a small 

portion of Upton County. The elevation of Ector County runs from 2,650 to 3,250 feet above sea level. 


About 50,000 years ago, a gigantic meteor 

crashed to earth in southern Ector County creating 

an immense and well-defined crater about 

650 feet wide covering approximately ten acres 

of land. While the Odessa Meteor Crater is one 

of several meteor craters located in west Texas, 

the Odessa site is of greater scientific importance 

because of its better-defined and less eroded 

condition. Over the years since its discovery 

more than 1,500 meteorites have been found in 

the vicinity of the Odessa crater the largest 

weighing more than 300 pounds. These iron 

metallic meteorites known as Octahedrites are 

the most common type of iron meteorites. The 

site of the Odessa crater remained unknown 

until its discovery in 1892 by rancher Julius D. 

Henderson as he searched for a lost calf. The 

Odessa crater is designated by the National Park 

Service as a National Natural Landmark. 

Although the precise dates are disputed, 

archaeology indicates that Native Americans 

have probably been present in Ector County as 

long ago as 10,000 years. In 1953, Kenneth 

Glasscock, a pipeline welder and amateur 

archaeologist, made a remarkable discovery 

while spending a Sunday afternoon looking for 

arrowheads on the Scharbauer Ranch near 

Monahans Draw in Midland County not far 

from the Ector County line. In a dune of drifting 

sand, Glasscock unearthed a Folsom point made 

by the earliest known inhabitants of North 

America. When he returned a few days later to 

investigate further, Glassock found broken 

pieces of human bones but wisely decided not 

to dig further without the help of archaeological 

experts. When archaeologists arrived to investigate 

the find, they unearthed the remains of 

a Paleo-Indian woman believed to be about 

thirty years old at the time of her death perhaps 

about 9,000 to 12,000 years ago. The discovery 

became known as “Midland Minnie” and is a 

very important find since Minnie is the oldest 

known resident of present day Texas. Minnie’s 

remains now rest in a museum at Southern 

Methodist University in Dallas. 

Later Native Americans lived in Ector County 

at various times before the arrival of Anglo settlers. 

Some 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, these early 

people began gathering and planting seeds to 

produce food such as corn and beans. This 

remarkable transitional achievement allowed 

these prehistoric Indians to live more permanently 

in locations where they could find water 

and shelter. In the Permian Basin these archaic 

stage Native Americans lived in rock shelters 

leaving behind evidence of their presence in the 

form of stone tools and rock art. To survive, they 

gathered plants and seeds and hunted wild 

game to provide meat. They ground nuts, seeds 

and mesquite beans with stones known as 

manos in mortar holes in rock usually near water 

and their camping place. Such archaic stage 

rock shelters are fairly numerous in the Permian 

Basin. A few of these shelters are present in 

western Ector County but just across the county 

line in Winkler County lies Blue Mountain, a 

location with a long history of human occupation. 

Blue Mountain rises to an elevation of 

3,500 feet and is a part of the Caprock 

Escarpment. It only appears to be a mountain 

when viewed from the south. 

In the 1930s archaeologists discovered a 

number of artifacts at the Blue Mountain rock 

shelters including projectile points, awls, beads, 

scrapers and some pottery believed to be of 

Pueblo origin. In addition, the Blue Mountain 

site has more than one hundred unique boat 

shaped mortar holes indicating human presence 

over a very long period of time. One credible 

historic account states that Comanche Indians 

lived at the Blue Mountain caves during the 

nineteenth century. Once a part of the Northern 

Shoshone, the Comanche obtained their first 

horses about the time of the Pueblo Indian 

Revolt of 1680. The acquisition gave the 

Comanche a newfound mobility as they migrated 

southwest into Texas following the great 

buffalo herds to hunt. Described as the “Lords of 

the Plains”, the Comanche earned a reputation 

for being fierce warriors known for their exceptional 

horse riding skills. A nomadic people, the 

Comanche lived in teepees moving from place to 

place as they hunted, traded and conducted 

raids to steal horses as far south as Mexico. Their 

territory known as the Comancheria included 

parts of New Mexico and western Texas as well 

as portions of Oklahoma and Kansas. 

In a 1933 Odessa News-Times article, Captain 

Jim Cook, claimed he lived with a Comanche 

band at Blue Mountain about 1864. Cook, taken 

captive at the age of twelve years from his home 

on the Llano River, stated that his Comanche 

The Comanche are the best-known 

Native American tribe to have 

occupied the Permian Basin. Pictured 

is Quanah Parker, a Kwahadi 

Comanche leader. 

Chapter One ✦ 5

Above: The sixth largest meteorite 

crater in the world is ten miles 

southwest of Odessa in Ector County. 

The crater is over 500 feet wide and 

100 feet deep. It was formed when a 

massive shower of meteorites, 

weighing 1,000 tons, collided with 

the earth. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE PETROLEUM 

MUSEUM, BETTY ORBECK COLLECTION, ADAMS 

PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO. 

Opposite: Fence stretchers such as 

the one featured at the Monahans 

Sandhills State Park, were used on 

many varieties of barbed wire used by 

early west Texas ranchers. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY THE MONAHANS 

SANDHILLS STATE PARK. 

captors utilized the Blue Mountain rock shelters 

because the location offered protection from the 

elements and a nearby spring provided water 

even in dry weather. Blue Mountain is located a 

little more than forty miles northwest of the Old 

Buffalo Wallow on 42nd Street in present day 

Odessa. Each year in August and September the 

great buffalo herds migrated south each year 

across the Great Plains in search of greener grass 

and warmer climate as autumn set in and winter 

approached. It is known that at least a few of 

these herds utilized the Odessa buffalo wallow 

after coming to that location on two major trails 

in the area. The buffalo used the muddy waters of 

these wallows to rid themselves of their winter 

coats and insect infestations. Although no archaeological 

evidence is known to exist proving the 

Blue Mountain Comanche band described by 

Cook hunted the great beasts at the Odessa 

buffalo wallow it is possible since the place is 

the closest known site to Blue Mountain where 

buffalo congregated. The Comanche depended 

heavily on the buffalo as their primary source 

for meat and wasted no part of the animals. 

They used buffalo hides to make leather, sinew 

from the bones and ligaments to make bowstrings, 

boiled the hooves to make glue, and 

built fires from dried buffalo dung. The Texas 

Historical Commission placed a state historical 

marker at the Odessa buffalo wallow in 1964. 

While archaeologists frequently surmise that 

Native Americans produced rock art for religious 

reasons, Captain Cook offered a more practical 

explanation for some the Blue Mountain paintings 

done by the Comanche. Cook said the 

Comanche sometimes created rock art to illustrate 

stories of their travels or show the location 

of water. One painting of a crude tree with nine 

marks meant, according to Cook, “nine days to a 

water hole”. Another painting of a horse and a 

section of fence Cook interpreted to mean, 

“….easy pickin’s, [sic] a good place for stealing 

horses”. The former captive stated that he 

believed Indians other than the Comanche also 

made some of the Blue Mountain paintings. At 

one time, the site contained more than thirty 

pictographs. However, sadly, today they no longer 

exist due to extensive vandalism of the site. 


Chapter One ✦ 7

C HAPTER 

T WO 

ODESSA: COW TOWN 

TO BOOM TOWN 

The Ratliff Feed Store and Wagon 

Yard, on the southwest corner of 

Fourth and Texas streets, was owned 

by Harvey Stewart Ratliff. Mr. Ratliff 

and his family came to Ector County 

in 1903 and settled northeast 

of Odessa. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE PERMIAN 

HISTORICAL SOCIETY ARCHIVAL COLLECTION, 

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS OF THE PERMIAN 

BASIN, ODESSA, TEXAS. 

Under a hot July sun in 1881 a Texas and Pacific railroad construction crew pitched their 

tents and made camp at Wells Point, Milepost 296, not far from Monahans Draw inside present 

day Ector County. Today the location of that encampment lies in the southwest corner of Odessa. 

However, in 1881, there existed no bustling oil patch city, only seemingly endless rolling, grass 

covered prairies as far as one could see. Monahans Draw offered newcomers the only available 

shade and water. Wells Point resembled a hundred other T&P camps that rapidly appeared as 

the steel tracks of the railroad moved westward. The camps were shantytowns or tent cities 

that sprang up seemingly over night. Some grew to be the future towns and cities of West Texas 

while others simply withered away. A number of them earned well-deserved reputations of 

being rowdy wide-open places full of railroad workers, saloonkeepers, drifters, gamblers and 

painted ladies. 


About the same time Wells Point came into 

being, an enterprising whiskey merchant 

unloaded his saloon from a railroad flatcar and 

opened for business in a tent. U.S. Marshals 

and buffalo soldiers kept a watchful eye over 

Wells Point for a time before moving on with 

the T&P crews. In 1881 the Texas and Pacific 

constructed an amazing 382 miles of track 

across West Texas from Baird to Sierra Blanca. 

As the crews moved on, they left behind rail 

station operators and their families in the 

camps. Many of the station operators lived in 

converted boxcars until section houses and 

more permanent quarters could be completed. 

It is said the first structure erected at Wells Point 

happened to be the T&P section house. 

Although there are several different stories 

about how Odessa got its name, most accounts 

are linked to the Wells Point camp. One version 

states that Russian members of the construction 

crews said the location reminded them of their 

native steppes of Odessa, Russia. The Odessa 

Land and Town Site Company advertised the 

countryside being similar to the Russian stepps. 

Another story says that Irish workers named 

their camp Odessa in honor of another now forgotten 

town they recalled. Perhaps they referred 

to Texas communities in Cooke and Wise counties 

that had post offices named Odessa in 1855 

and 1866. And then there is the story of Odessa 

Brockett, a runaway girl who wondered into 

Wells Point in search of her mother’s family. 

According to this account, the rail workers felt 

sorry for the lost child and renamed their camp 

for her. Another version says that Odessa got its 

name from a little girl who came to Wells Point 

or perhaps to an earlier cowboy camp after she 

escaped an Indian massacre. 

While it is not clear exactly when Wells Point 

became known as Odessa, the new name 

became official at least by 1885 when some 

seventy residents petitioned for and got a post 

office. This happened before the formal creation 

of Ector County when Odessa lay within the 

boundaries of Tom Green County. Previous to 

being part of Tom Green County, today’s Ector 

County had been included in the 60,000 square 

miles of Bexar County, as did sixty-six other 

present day Texas counties. Founded in 1886, 

the Odessa Land and Town Site Company of 

Zanesville, Ohio, offered for sale lots in the new 

town of Odessa in an area of 300 acres originally 

platted in 1886. Today these 300 acres are 

located in the center of downtown Odessa. 

Although Odessa Land and Town Site Company 

agent John Hodge probably never set foot in 

Ector County, he offered prospective buyers of 

the lots a chance to obtain inexpensive homes 

with “many advantages to men of family” and 

“provisions made for a college, library, public 

schools and churches”. 

Hodge promised “no saloons” were to be 

permitted in the new town backed by deed 

restrictions barring “the manufacture or sale of 

spirituous, vinous or malt liquors or any 

intoxicating beverages”. The deed clauses stated 

that should the prohibition of alcohol be 

violated on any of the town site properties, title 

to the land reverted back to John Hodge. In 

addition, Odessa Land and Town Site Company 

advertising pledged to prospective buyers rich 

land, pure water, and the “best all year climate 

in the world”. A 50 x 140 foot residential lot 

could be purchased for $100 with commercial 

lots of the same size offered for $150. In 1887 

surveyors marked off the corners of Ector 

County for the first time. Hoping to attract 

buyers from as far away as Saint Louis and 

Kansas City, the town site company made 

available for a time low priced tickets on bimonthly 

T & P excursion trains. While some 

would be land buyers took advantage of the 

company’s offers and a few bought land, a severe 

drought set in and the Odessa Town Site 

Company went bankrupt in 1889. During the 

1890s, Odessa grew slowly from 224 residents 

in 1890 to 433 at the turn of the century. 

Ector County is named for Matthew Duncan 

Ector, a Confederate officer during the Civil War 

who after the war became a prominent Texas 

judge. Born in Georgia in 1822 Ector came to 

Texas in 1847 at age twenty-five. He settled 

in Rusk County and practiced law. With the 

outbreak of the Civil War, Ector enlisted as a 

private in the Third Texas Cavalry serving on 

later Texas governor General James L. Hogg’s 

staff. Ector saw combat in four battles before 

being placed in command of the Fourteenth 

Texas Cavalry. This unit became known as 

Ector’s Brigade. When the brigade attempted 

to relieve Confederate troops at Vicksburg, 

Mississippi, in July 1864, Ector took a bullet in 

Ector County took its name from 

General Matthew Duncan Ector, 

confederate hero of the Civil War. 

Ector led Texas troops in such famous 

battles as Shiloh, Richmond, 

Murfreesboro, and Vicksburg. 




BASIN. ODESSA, TEXAS. 

Chapter Two ✦ 9

In 1907 James Early Parker, Jr., 

acquired two sections of land divided 

by the Andrews and Ector County 

Line. In 1935 he moved to Ector 

County and made this house, located 

on Maple and 13th Streets, the 

headquarters for the family’s early 

Ector and Andrews County ranches. 

The house was restored and opened to 

the community as the Parker House 

Ranching Museum in 1996. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE PARKER HOUSE 

MUSEUM, ODESSA, TEXAS. 

his right leg, the wound being so serious it 

resulted in the amputation of his leg below the 

knee. Although Ector was to have taken command 

of Confederate forces in Mobile, Alabama, 

his military career had come to an end. In 1866, 

Ector was elected as a district judge but got 

removed from office in 1867 for being a “southern 

obstructionist”. In 1875 voters elected Ector 

to the Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. His colleagues 

chose him to be presiding judge of the 

court where he served until his death in 1879. 

The prohibition of liquor issue entered the 

political arena with the formal establishment of 

Ector County in an election held on January 6, 

1891. Ector County voters chose as their first 

sheriff a high-spirited but good-natured rancher 

by the name of Elias F. “Lish” Dawson. Sheriff 

Lish had two brothers, Samuel Toliver who everyone 

called “Tol” and John Gilbert known simply 

as “Gib”. Shortly after the Civil War the three 

brothers had accompanied their father, Silas R. 

Dawson, across west Texas in route to the goldfields 

of California. At some point in the 1880s 

the Dawsons returned to Texas and took up 

ranching in Crane and Ector Counties. After the 

election Sheriff Lish and his brother Tol decided 

to get into the saloon business and came up with 

an unusual plan they thought permitted them to 

circumvent the no liquor deed restrictions of the 

Odessa Town Site Company. The brothers decided 

the restrictions only applied to deeded lots 

sold by the company and not to the streets. So 

they built a saloon, which in reality was little 

more than a wooden shack, in the middle of 

Second and Lee streets in downtown Odessa. 

The outlandish establishment became known 

as the Dawson Saloon and actually operated for 

a time in the middle of the street with Tol tending 

bar along with his brother. Sheriff Lish kept 

a barber chair in the place where he cut hair. 

Not surprisingly, Lish and Tol found themselves 

in court over the matter several times between 


Jim Parker, Jr., married Ola Lindley 

in 1908. Jim Parker wore his father’s 

mason uniform and Ola and her 

mother made this lace dress to wear 

at the ceremony. They can be seen at 

the Parker House Ranching Museum. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE PARKER HOUSE 

MUSEUM, ODESSA, TEXAS. 

Chapter Two ✦ 11

Freighters were used to move supplies 

and equipment into distant areas from 

the Texas and Pacific railhead at 

Colorado City. This photograph, taken 

about 1906-1907, shows freighters 

moving north across Big Sulpher 

Creek toward Dunn, Texas, a small 

town south of Snyder. Big Sulpher had 

ample water and was a campsite for 

the teamsters. 


MUSEUM, BETTY ORBECK COLLECTION. 

November 1891 and August 1892. The Dawson 

brothers’ idea to sell whiskey in the street however 

proved to be something of a victory for 

them when the county judge ruled the deed 

restrictions to be illegal. But the judge also held 

the sheriff “had no right to build in the middle 

of the street”. So the brothers moved their 

saloon from the street to a nearby lot where they 

continued running the saloon for a time. 

Not everyone in the county approved of the 

Dawson saloon operation however. The good 

Reverend M. A. Daugherty, a hellfire and 

brimstone-preaching minister, led a very 

committed anti-saloon movement against the 

Dawsons. Daugherty came to Odessa in 1887 

from Pennsylvania and established a Methodist 

church and school in the new town. The 

Reverend joined forces with two staunch lady 

prohibitionist members of his congregation, 

Mrs. J. R. Herkimer and Mrs. W. P. Mudgett, 

and formed an anti-saloon group they called 

the “White Ribboners”. The group got its 

name from the Texas White Ribbon official 

publication of the Texas based Women’s 

Christian Temperance Union. The White 

Ribboners became a fairly common local 

spectacle with the women parading through the 

streets of downtown Odessa protesting the 

town’s open saloons and boozing in general. 

The ladies wore white streamers penned to 

their dresses, carried signs while loudly 

chanting their slogan of “Lips that touch liquor 

shall never touch mine!” 

Sheriff Tol lived at a boarding house operated 

by his stepmother Martha “Aunt Matt” Dawson. 

Although she permitted Ector County’s whiskey 

selling sheriff to have a room in her boarding 

establishment Aunt Matt was herself a member 

of Reverend Daugherty’s church where she 

taught Sunday school. Although thoroughly 

committed to the anti-saloon movement, Aunt 

Matt came under fire from the zealous minister 

when he proclaimed one day, “no decent woman 

would live with a saloon man”. The comment 

sent the normally good-natured Sheriff into a fit 

of rage. According to one account when the two 

men met face-to-face after the comment Tol 

grabbed Daugherty’s long beard and “kicked 

him in the stomach until he was almost dead”. 

During the saloon controversy some Odessa 

males responded to the protests of the White 

Ribboners with ridicule and a few pranks. The 

issue divided families and caused more than a 

few heated arguments with some turning into 

fistfights. Also, about this time, Reverend 

Daugherty’s “college” mysteriously burned to 

the ground one night. When the next county 

election came around in November 1892, 

Tol Dawson lost the office of sheriff to the 

more peaceloving and religious George M. 


McGonagile. Claiming fraud, Dawson contested 

the election and sued the new sheriff in January 

1893. The issue proved to be so controversial 

that an impartial jury for Dawson’s case 

could not be found and the court impounded 

the ballot boxes. Finally, four months later, 

McGonagile emerged as the official sheriff of 

Ector County and remained in office until 

1897. During the new sheriff’s time in office 

the saloons remained open for business 

and the White Ribboners continued their 

spirited opposition. 

There were several other saloons in operation 

near the T & P railroad tracks in Odessa during 

this time including the Molly and John Saloon. 

In May 1897 another open saloon entered the 

picture when Bob and Charles Hilburn opened 

the Hilburn Brothers Saloon on the corner of 

First and Grant. In addition to selling liquor, the 

brothers offered patrons gambling with gaming 

tables and horse race betting. Between 1898 and 

1901 the Hilburn brothers found themselves in 

court numerous times facing various charges 

resulting from the gambling operation. They 

always pled guilty and usually paid fines of no 

more than $25. However, the court actions did 

little to close down the saloon since the two 

brother’s father, Judge Seaborn Webb Hilburn 

presided over his son’s cases. In a final case 

against the brothers, the judge fined son Bob the 

usual $25 but added on a sentence of ten days 

in the county jail. The Hilburn saloon operated 

until 1904. 

Julius Henderson, a teenager living in Odessa 

at the time, later recalled an incident of the 

prohibition controversy that took place during 

Sheriff McGonagile’s time in office; 

“When McGonagile was sheriff here those 

White Ribboners were holding a meeting in the 

District Court room. His son and I gotta jug and 

put about a quart of black powder in it…put a 

fuse in it…crawled under the courthouse and set 

the fuse afire. The [court] house was just a shack 

then built of very light thin lumber. When that 

powder exploded, it shook every board and 

those people sure did come out of there.” 

Fortunately no one was injured by the dangerous 

prank but it clearly demonstrated the 

considerable hostility faced by the women in 

their quest to close the saloons. In 1906 the 

White Ribboners formally presented the county 

with a petition bearing the signatures of 76 

women and one man calling for the closing of 

the saloons. In part their petition read: 

“We believe that the open saloon, with its 

social setting, is one of the worst, if not the 

worst, enemy of our homes and happiness. That 

it takes from our homes the men we love, 

and for whose happiness we live, turns their 

affections from their families, and changes their 

loving care and sweet helpfulness into cruel 

neglect and cold indifference, and often, oh too 

often, robbing themselves of every noble trait. 

We come to you noble men; we beg you hear 

our hearts cry. Give us at least, two years of 

prohibition, close the Saloon, enforce the law, 

and let us see if it will not better our conditions. 

With out stretched hands and bleeding hearts, 

we beg of you this poor boon. Time was in days 

of chivalry, when at such a plea, men would 

shed the last drop of their blood for the women 

who loved them. Is it possible, that in this 

Christian age, men love us less than in the brave 

days of old. We don’t believe it, and with hearts 

full of love and trust and sweet confidence, we 

sign our names to this petition.” 

The petition resulted in an election held on 

December 12, 1906, to formally decide if Ector 

County voters would choose to go wet or dry. 

The booze issue greatly divided the community 

pitting men against their wives accompanied 

by numerous complaints of election fraud. It 

turned out to be the largest election held in the 

county to that date with a total 123 votes cast. 

The White Ribboners won with 76 votes for 

prohibition and 47 against. Immediately some 

of the men charged that the White Ribboners 

hired “bums from other counties to cast illegal 

votes” but this was never proven. After the 

election the White Ribboners paraded through 

the streets of downtown Odessa proclaiming 

their victory. As White Ribbon leader Marinda 

Herkimer drove past the former Mollie and 

John Saloon in her 1906 Phaeton buggy, she 

could not have missed noticing that the former 

bar room was in the process of putting up a 

new sign with the new name for the place the, 

“Mollie and John Pool Hall.” 

Chapter Two ✦ 13

William Colwell Sublett’s gravestone 

is located in the Odessa Cemetery. 





On January 5, 1892, the first Ector County 

resident to be buried in the then new Odessa 

Cemetery located on present day South Dixie 

Boulevard got laid to rest. His name is 

William Caldwell Sublett and this is a name 

not forgotten more than a century later by 

treasure hunters and gold prospectors. Born in 

Tennessee about 1834, Sublett grew up in 

Alabama before coming to Texas in 1857 where 

he served as a Texas Ranger. In August of 1862, 

Sublett joined the First Arkansas Cavalry to 

fight for the Confederacy during the Civil War. 

During the battle of Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 

the spring of 1863, he received a commendation 

for gallantry. After the war Sublett married and 

lived in Saint Louis before returning to Texas 

in 1870. His wife, Laura Louisa Denney bore 

him three children before she died in 1873. The 

following year, Sublett arrived in west Texas 

where he took up buffalo hunting. During the 

1880s he scouted and provided game meat to 

the Texas and Pacific Railway as the company 

built tracks westward. During this time, Sublett 

tried his hand at prospecting. 

According to legend he discovered the gold 

of the “Lost Sublett Mine” somewhere along 

the upper Pecos River or in the Guadalupe 

Mountains. Although William Sublett never told 

anyone the exact location of the mine, Texas 

folklorist J. Frank Dobie claimed he found the 

gold in an old Spanish mine. The legend says 

that one day Sublett walked into an Odessa 

saloon, plopped down a leather pouch full of 

gold and bought drinks for the whole house. 

Locals said that whenever Sublett needed 

money, he would sneak out of town making sure 

no one followed him and go to his mine to get 

some of his gold. Several men tried to follow 

him to the mysterious mine but all failed. In 

1887, Sublett moved to Odessa where he lived 

at his homestead in a dug out house along with 

his children. Sublett made his living in Ector 

County by doing odd jobs and digging water 

wells. He became known for having the ability 

to “witch water” because he could find underground 

water by using the ancient practice of 

dowsing. In 1889, Sublet sold his Ector County 

homestead and moved to Barstow in Ward 

County where he died in 1892. 

Dry land farming proved to be problematic in 

the early days of Ector County because of 

numerous droughts and a lack of existing water 

wells. In addition, the county contains no regularly 

flowing rivers or creeks to provide irrigation 

water for farming. As a result the land 

of Ector County proved to be better suited 

for ranching because the subsurface water 

fortunately existed at a fairly shallow depth. 

Ranchers were able to dig wells and pump water 

into surface stock tanks with windmills. Also in 

years with sufficient rainfall, soil in the county 

can produce both luxuriant and widespread 

growth of prairie grass that is very well suited 

for cattle production. The 1900 census records 

the most common occupation in Odessa to be a 

“cow man”. This 1900 census listed twenty-five 

ranches and farms in the county and a decade 

later in 1910 that number only increased to 

some eighty-four with an estimated 24,000 head 

of cattle being present. A decade later in 1920 

only fifty ranches and farms remained. In 1910 

Ector County had 1,178 residents listed on the 

census but that number fell to 760 in 1920. 


One pioneer rancher who lived most of his 

life in Ector County was J. J. “Uncle Jeff” 

Amburgey. Uncle Jeff came to Texas from 

Kentucky in 1883 after earning something of a 

reputation as an Indian fighter. He became 

one of the first organizers of Ector County in 

1891 and later served as county judge. When 

Amburgey arrived at Well’s Point he remembered, 

“the only living persons in the section 

of the country between Big Spring and Pecos 

City were operators for the railroads and their 

homes were built out of box cars.” Cheap land 

prices in Ector County attracted Uncle Jeff to 

Odessa. He said, “Land was pretty cheap out 

there then. I bought seven sections of school 

land at $1.00 an acre and they gave us ten years 

to pay for it. After I got the land, I went into the 

cow business”. 

Branch Isbell always wanted to be a cowboy 

even before he called Ector County home. Born 

in Sumter County, Alabama, in 1851, Isbell 

arrived in Odessa in 1898 and lived there until 

shortly before his death in 1927. As a twelveyear-old 

boy, young Branch could not forget the 

time when he saw a squad of Confederate soldiers 

drive 300 Texas steers across his mother’s 

farm in 1863. The following morning when the 

herd moved on to cross the Tombigbee River 

some four miles distant, Branch asked his mother 

for permission to ride along to the river on 

his pony. She permitted him to do so. Along the 

way that day the Confederate drovers sang cowboy 

songs and that evening the young boy 

returned home inspired. He told his mother that 

as soon as he became a man he wanted to “go to 

Texas and become a cow puncher.” In 1870, he 

got the chance to realize his dream when Frank 

Byler took him to Corpus Christi to find a job. 

Isbell then went to work for John Burkes driving 

a cattle herd from Nueces County, Texas, to 

Abilene, Kansas. Isbell noted “My bedroll on the 

trip consisted of a saddle blanket, a black rubber 

coat and an old fashioned man’s shawl. 

Luxury played no part in our surroundings 

then.” On the drive, the young Isbell developed 

a dislike of packing a pistol, one that he held for 

the rest of his days. Burkes put the young greenhorn 

on the dusty job of riding drag behind the 

herd on his first cattle drive. Because the herd 

consisted of half cows and half steers, it became 

Isbell’s sad duty to shoot any newborn calves 

born during the night since they could not yet 

walk and would not survive with out the mother 

cow. As he put it “It looked hard, but circumstances 

demanded the sacrifice, and being the 

executioner so disgusted me with six-shooters 

that I have never owned—much less used one 

from that time to this. It is likely, too, that not 

being a gunman during the following five or six 

years kept me from becoming involved in the 

several shooting tragedies that I saw enacted.” 

Following the Burkes cattle drive, Isbell 

worked a few months for Sam Glenn in Kansas. 

Isbell wrote “From Sam I got my first real 

lesson in grazing and watering a herd of big 

steers, an art which is now almost lost, but in 

Two West Texas cowboys from 1905 

posed for a formal portrait. Port 

Mosley, on the left, worked on JM’s 

Ranch, later known as the Circle Dot 

Ranch and Lee King worked for 

Brat Holt. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE 

PETROLEUM MUSEUM, ABELL-HANGER 

FOUNDATION COLLECTION. 

Chapter Two ✦ 15

Early West Texas trail herd. 





which I became an expert.” Branch returned to 

Corpus Christi and in 1872 and hired on with 

Scott & Baylor for $20 per month. He tried his 

hand at horse-trading and by the end of the year 

managed to make $150 in cash and acquire five 

good ponies. That year he also worked for Jim 

Miller in Nueces County running cattle between 

the Nueces and the Rio Grande Rivers. While 

working for the Miller outfit, the cowboys got a 

chance to attend a dance at a ranch near San 

Patricio. Isbell recalled his encounter with a 

pretty girl that evening. 

“During the evening I approached a young 

miss of ‘sweet sixteen,’ Lizzie Hinnant, who I 

had met a few times before and asked her to 

dance. Without even the stereotyped excuse of a 

previous engagement she answered simply and 

curtly ‘No’. Feeling somewhat melted I thought 

I would embarrass her in turn, so I thanked her 

and told her that since there remained in the 

sea as good fish as had ever been caught, I’d cast 

my line in another place. Instead of ‘wilting’ as I 

thought she would, she came back with this: 

‘Certainly there are, but unfortunately for you 

they have quit biting toads.’ I retired to the shade 

of an apple tree and butted my head against it 

in sheer desperation. Since then I have known 

that the ‘Yellow Rose of Texas’ grows on a 

thorny bush.” 

In 1876, Branch Isbell headed up a trail 

drive to Abilene, Kansas, for R. R. Savage of 

Corpus Christi. The following year, he took 

part in a trail drive to Mitchell County in 

west central Texas. That July, Isbell helped 

establish one of the first ranches on Champion 

Creek some nine mile southeast of present 

day Colorado City. He spent four years there 

but went broke and decided to study law and 

become an attorney. In 1888, Isbell was 

elected county attorney in Scurry County at 

Snyder, Texas. He served two terms as county 

attorney before being elected county judge. 

In 1891, Isbell married a widow schoolteacher. 

His wife died in 1898, and Isbell moved to 

Ector County in the summer of that year. 

Isbell opened a grocery store in Odessa and 

continued running cattle and selling land. After 

the turn of the century Isbell served two terms 

as Ector County Judge and frequently attended 

the annual conventions of the Texas Cattle 

Raisers Association when he greatly enjoyed 

telling stories of his time as a trail driver 

and renewing old acquaintances. He was one 

of the original founders of Old Trail Drivers 

Association and in 1921 contributed his 

manuscript “Days That Were Full of Thrills” 

to the association that was later included in 

the book The Trail Drivers Of Texas originally 

published in 1924. 


Another long time Ector County rancher also 

remembered seeing Odessa for the first time this 

in 1900. Born July 29, 1894, in Stanton, Texas 

Calvin “Cal” Monroe Smith was six years old 

when his family got to Odessa. His father had 

just sold their Martin County ranch and the 

Smiths were on their way to ranch at the foot of 

the Guadalupe Mountains in Culberson County 

west of Odessa. They followed a two-rut trail; 

it would be more than thirty years before any 

paved roads came into existence. The family 

camped in Odessa for the night and filled the 

water barrels they carried on their wagons. Cal 

recalled, “Mother was driving one wagon, Dad 

the other. My brother and I rode horseback. 

This was big county to cross but we didn’t mind. 

It was what we were used to.” The little caravan 

continued on and the Smiths ran cattle on the 

very isolated Guadalupe Mountain Ranch for a 

few years. In November 1904, Cal’s mother died 

and his father decided it best to bring the 

family back to civilization so the children could 

go to school. He bought a ranch located twelve 

miles north of Odessa in 1906 and the Smiths 

moved to Ector County where Cal lived for the 

rest of his life. In 1966 Cal was 71 years old 

when reminisced about Odessa in years past. 

He recalled how Odessa got a new depot 

building for the Texas and Pacific railroad station 

and then a flood of memories poured out. 

“A bunch of fellows were playing poker 

around one of those old pot-bellied stoves in the 

old depot one night—just cowpokes, all they 

were. They decided we needed a new depot, so 

one of them went out and got some hay and set 

the old one on fire. There was no fire department 

then; anyway that’s how they got the new depot. 

I never had anything wrong with me. I never 

even had a cold, except for the flu back in 1919. 

Everybody in Odessa was sick, and there were 

no doctors. They put the [sick] people in a 

downtown building and took care of them as 

best they could. Life was good in those days. 

Nobody was in too big a hurry like now days. 

Folks had time to stop and talk to you down 

there on Main [Grant Street]—we called it Main 

Street then. Back in the old days we didn’t need 

a lot of money. A dollar was worth a dollar, an 

when you hired a man for a day’s work, you got 

it; now days, the only way you can get something 

done is do it youself. You have got to have 

progress but I tell you I am glad to have lived in 

the times that I have. I feel sorry for and worry 

about my grandkids and what the future is for 

them is. I have a feeling their lives are not going 

to be a good as mine. 

Another of Odessa’s early residents arrived in 

1887. Charles White and his wife Lucy came to 

Odessa from Indiana and built a two-story red 

The Paul Moss Ranch Headquarters is 

located west of Odessa. 




Chapter Two ✦ 17

Above: The White-Pool House is the 

oldest existing structure in Odessa 

and Ector County. It was built by 

early settler Charles White, who came 

to Odessa in 1887 with his wife Lucy 

and two sons, Wilfred and Hubert. 

Mr. White built the house at what is 

now 112 East Murphy, Odessa, Texas. 

The home is a museum at present. 





Right: The Pool family pictured in 

front of their home, now known as the 

White-Pool House. Standing left to 

right are Clyde Pool, Oso Pool, Ola 

Pool Smith, Ira Pool, and Ray Earnest 

Pool. Seated are Ida B. Pool, and 

W. J. Pool, c. 1934-1939. 





brick home at 112 East Murphy Street. White 

went on to construct eleven houses in the new 

town and took part in the formation of Ector 

County. At the corner of Third and Grant 

Streets White operated a general merchandise 

store. He did some of the first farming in the 

county, planting irrigated sorghum cane and 

cotton as well as establishing peach and 

pear orchards. The White’s irrigation and 

drinking water came from a well with a wooden 

windmill. White lived in the house until he 

died June 1905 after being kicked by a horse. 


Above: Photograph illustrates 

irrigation in Odessa around 1889. 

T. F. Spangler & Co. is inscribed on 

the front of picture mounting. 





Left: Bethenia Henderson Gassaway 

and her brother, Warren B. 

Henderson, next to a tank on their 

ranch in Ector County in 1909-1910. 




BASIN, ODESSA, TEXAS, HENDERSON PICTORIAL 

COLLECTION. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF 

THE PETROLEUM MUSEUM, BETTY 

ORBECK COLLECTION. 

Following her husband’s demise Lucy moved 

to Mineral Wells. Osa Pool purchased the 

White house in 1923 and converted it into 

a five-room apartment building. In the 1970s, 

Osa Pool donated the old house and six 

acres to Ector County so that the historic 

structure might be preserved. The White Pool 

house is the oldest structure existing today in 

Ector County and is listed in the National 

Register of Historical Places. It is a Texas 

Historical Landmark as well as being a Texas 

Archaeological Landmark. 

Chapter Two ✦ 19

Above: Texas Ranger Homer Robert 

Henderson, 1881-1963, in the center, 

and two unidentified Rangers are seen 

on patrol about 1904-1905. 





Right: Texas Ranger Homer R. 

Henderson, on the left, and an 

unidentified Ranger. Henderson served 

in Company A under the command of 

Captain J. A. Brooks. Mr. Henderson 

came to Odessa in 1906 and became 

a prominent rancher. 






In 1889, John Julius “J. J.” Henderson moved 

from Fort Stockton to Odessa with his wife, 

Susan Margaret and the couple’s five children. 

J. J. advised his son, William Thomas to get into 

the drugstore business and in September 1905, 

William purchased from A. S. and Mary Ratten 

the inventory of the only drugstore in Ector 

County at the time for the sum of $1,200. 

Henderson took possession of “the entire stock 

of goods consisting of drugs, jewelry, and 

notions including fixtures” and went into 

business as Henderson Drugstore located at 122 

North Grant Street. He built a new red stone 

two-story building to house his drug store, the 

stone quarried from the Quito Wells Stone 

Quarry not far from Barstow. This is the same 

quarry Ector County used to obtain red stone in 

1904 to build its new courthouse. Texas law 

required that in order to obtain a license to 

become pharmacist an individual must work 

for six months for a registered medical 

doctor. Henderson earned his pharmaceutical 

license while Dr. R. A. Wilson and his brother 

Dr. R. G. Wilson and Dr. F. E. Gibbons practiced 

medicine on the second floor of the Henderson 

Drug Building. A popular gathering place, 

Henderson Drug served ice cream from a soda 

fountain and served as Odessa’s post office for a 

time. The second floor doctor’s office became a 

hospital during the Influenza epidemic of 1919 

when as one old time resident put it, so many 

people were sick it was hard to find anyone to 

dig the graves of those who died of the flu. 

The Henderson Drug building is the oldest 

commercial building still standing in Odessa. 

The first recorded public school went into 

operation in Odessa in February 1890 when 

Inez Rathburn commenced teaching classes in a 

rented room. Previously, privately funded ranch 

schools and a Methodist school and college had 

operated at various times in Ector County. In 

1889 a group of Methodists led by Reverend 

M. A. Daugherty undertook the construction of 

a college in Odessa. The college building cost 

$18,000 and was described as “the largest and 

finest building for miles around”. A separate 

Homer R. Henderson, veteran Texas 

Ranger, deputy sheriff for Ector and 

Crane Counties, and rancher, 

standing by a chuckwagon at the 

04 Ranch, Ector County, Texas, 

c. 1908-1910. 



Chapter Two ✦ 21

Right: Students and teacher of the 

Barrow School are pictured in 1923. 

Left to right are: Haden Barrow, 

teacher Clola Lee, Bertha Barrow, 

Earnest Barrow, and Hence Barrow. 





Below: The inscription on this image 

reads, “Odessa’s beautiful new high 

school.” The picture was taken just 

after it was built in 1928. 





public school building valued at $1,800 was 

ready for classes in early 1892 and for a very 

short time Odessa had both a college and 

public school teaching classes. Disaster struck 

however when both the college and the 

schoolhouse were destroyed by fire within a 

few months. On June 6, 1892, Reverend 

Daugherty’s college mysteriously burned to the 

ground and not long after the public school 

building also burned in a separate but also 

unexplained fire. Although the cause of the 

fires remained unknown some said the 

building had been intentionally set ablaze by 

drunken cowboys opposed the to the reverend’s 

anti-liquor stance and education in general. 

Superintendent Buchanan wrote of the fire “our 

school house burned last fall 1892, we suppose 

by incendiaries”. 


Above: Store owned by Charles White 

on southeast corner of Third and 

Grant Streets, The photograph was 

taken before Wilfred White left 

Odessa in 1896. The man in the top 

hat is the Reverend Gotleib Golder, 

the man in the flat straw hat is 

Charles White, others are unknown. 





Left: A. C. Windham on the left and 

C. A. “Geronimo” Robinson with the 

Odessa Dray Wagon, c. 1904-1907. 

The newly built Ector County 

Courthouse is in the background. 



Chapter Two ✦ 23

One of the early churches in Odessa 

was the First Christian Church. 

Pictured is the congregation outside 

the church. 





Opposite, top: Odessa Band, 

1901-1903 





Opposite, bottom: Odessa had its own 

community band from about 1905 to 

1910. Professor Carl Beck, standing 

in center, was the organizer and 

director of the Odessa Band. 





The employment of Mrs. Rathburn marked 

the beginning of the first tax-funded public 

schools for Odessa. The new teacher received 

$57 to teach in February and March of 1890, 

paid for by Midland County since at the time 

Ector County had not been yet formally 

organized. In the fall of 1890, Mrs. E. R. Byran 

taught classes in the Ector County courthouse 

receiving $40 per month. On February 23, 

1891, the newly formed Commissioner’s Court 

of Ector County ordered that taxes be levied 

on real and personal property in the county 

to fund the operation of a public school. The 

court set the tax at twenty cents for each $100 

evaluation. The move met with opposition 

since no election had been held to approve it 

causing acting school superintendent M. G. 

Buchanan to write in 1892 “Our present levy is 

clearly illegal. We had trouble collecting it last 

year and some of our large tax payers have 

declared their intention to fight it this year so 

our commissioners have decided not to levy it”. 

In the meantime, funding for a school came 

from another source when Ector County 

received from the State of Texas a grant of four 

leagues of land, some 17,000 acres in Bailey 

County “for public school purposes”. On 

September 14, 1891 the Commissioner’s Court 

sold the land for $1 per acre providing the 

school some $11,500 for the first year. In 

February 1894 Ector County voters approved a 

school tax of 20 cents per $100 by a vote of 

26 for and 6 opposed. Classes continued in the 

courthouse until 1898 when the county finished 

building a new two-story brick schoolhouse 

located at the corner of Texas Ave and 

Sixth Street at a cost of $2,750. The county 

judge served as school superintendent during 

these years drawing a salary from the school 

funds. By 1909 the Ector County School 

District had 6 teachers and 185 students. Ranch 

schools operated in the county until 1915. 

In 1904 a new red stone county courthouse 

replaced an earlier wooden structure in Odessa. 

Jesse Frame, the T&P agent in Odessa, placed a 

group of documents to be preserved for future 

generations sealed in a tin box in the cornerstone 

of the new courthouse. According to Frame, 

Odessa offered few opportunities in 1904 

because as he put it, “nothing here but some 

stock raising, though it may be a farming or 

granger country some day.” Frame saw limited 

prospects for the town to grown although he 

also placed into the cornerstone a copy of the 

Odessa News Times dated July 29, 1904 that read, 

“Prof. V. D. Gassaway of the U. S. Geological 

Survey, while prospecting in the Odessa country, 

has discovered unmistakable evidences of 

petroleum and natural gas, which, when 

properly developed in the near future, will make 

Sour Lake and Spindle Top look like thirty cents 

and Odessa will put on her meetin’ [sic] clothes”. 


Chapter Two ✦ 25

Above: The second Ector County 

Courthouse, built in 1904, is shown 

during an election in the late 1920s. 

In 1938, it was replaced by a 

new courthouse. 





Right: “The Land Rush” of 1904 at 

the Ector County Court House, where 

fights among pioneers occurred daily 

to determine who could file claim on 

the land. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE SHOOPMAN 

NEGATIVE COLLECTION, PERMIAN HISTORICAL 

SOCIETY ARCHIVAL COLLECTION, THE UNIVERSITY 

OF TEXAS OF THE PERMIAN BASIN. 


Also in 1904, a very public brawl took place 

in front of new courthouse. The incident, 

remembered as the “Ector County Land Rush”, 

happened when nearly every man in the county 

attempted to file papers to gain title to four 

sections of land made available by the Four- 

Section act of 1895. An extension of earlier 

land acts by the State of Texas, the act offered 

four sections of public land in most Texas 

counties for $2 per acre if the buyer could 

prove residence and make improvements to the 

land. On the filing day, a large unruly crowd 

gathered before the courthouse doors opened 

with one man hiding inside the courthouse 

the night before in an effort to be first in line 

to file. The former sheriff and saloonkeeper 

Elias Dawson and Charlie Lewis each brought a 

number of friends to take part in the filing. 

When the courthouse doors opened at the 

appointed hour, Lewis was boosted over the 

heads of the crowd to the front of the line and 

won the four sections of land. 

Thirty-four years later when the county 

tore down the old red stone courthouse to 

build a new one, county officials opened 

its cornerstone in a public ceremony. Jesse 

Frame’s son, Paul Frame, the T&P agent at 

that time, attended the ceremony to retrieve 

the contents his father sealed away years 

before. In addition to a couple of poker hands, 

several letters and newspapers, the younger 

Frame found a letter from Kelley Hogg, 

written in 1904, that offers a glimpse of Odessa 

in its cow town days. Kelley Hogg knew 

Odessa well before it became an oil center. 

He had worked for the T&P railroad for 

three years when he penned his letter to future 

residents writing: 

Young Odessans at the telephone office 

located at the southwest corner of 

Third and Grant Streets, 

c. 1907-1909. 





Chapter Two ✦ 27

This view of Odessa in 1911 was 

taken from the top of the courthouse, 

looking southwest. The two story 

building in the center is Citizen’s 

National Bank and the building in 

the foreground is the Odessa 

Telephone Company. 




BASIN, ODESSA, TEXAS. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY 

OF THE PETROLEUM MUSEUM, ABELL-HANGER 


“Hi, it is possible that when the corner stone 

of the courthouse is removed and this little tin 

box opened again, the town of Odessa instead of 

being what you might call a village may be a 

large city and a great railroad center, but old 

head please remember that I have born the same 

burdens that you are now bearing and had the 

same hell that you are now having. As I have 

long since been laid away, and my days and 

nights of loading trunks and carrying the U.S. 

mail are over, in other words, my race is run. 

I plead to thee to accept my deepest sympathy 

in these, your days of trouble. I have been in the 

service of this company for about three years, 

under Mr. F. B. Gilbet, chief dispatcher, Big 

Spring, Texas. Was [sic] discharged once while 

working at the little town of Midland for getting 

‘boozy’ and trying to be a bad man. We have 

some of the damndest [sic] whiskey you ever 

flopped your lip over. I would put a half pint in 

the box with this letter but these rounders 

around this burg [sic] would tear the cornerstone 

out if they should happen to get on to it in 

a short time as there are some of them that could 

smell it.” Kelley closed his 1904 letter to future 

generations by saying, “Before this letter is read 

and many years before, I expect to be with my 

old friends, and the agent in heaven where there 

are no railroads, where we will be enjoying eternal 

bliss, while you are plunking away, filling the 

places we vacated.” 

In 1912 a Midland blacksmith by the name 

of John Pliska offered the citizens of Ector 

County a show, the like they had never seen 

before when he brought his hand built twin 

prop biplane to a main street Fourth of July 

celebration for an exhibition flight down Grant 

Street in Odessa. Practically the whole town 

turned out for the event. The Odessa Band, 

directed by Professor Beck, added to the festive 

atmosphere. A native of Austria, Pliska’s interest 

in aviation began when he studied aviation 

at a military glider and balloon flight school 

in Bavaria. After emigrating to the United 

States, his interest in flying got rekindled when 

he saw a Wright brothers airplane land in 

Midland on a cross county flight about 1909. 

Plishka was so impressed with the Wright flying 

machine that he decided to build one of his 

own. With the exception of the engine, Pliska 

and his assistant, Gray Coggin, hand built their 

airplane in Pliska’s blacksmith shop in Midland. 

Before bringing their flying machine to 

Odessa, Pliska and Coggin successfully test flew 

the craft to respectable altitudes at the polo 

grounds outside Midland. But their luck in 

Odessa proved to be less than hoped for. In 

preparation for the exhibition, mesquite trees 

lining the road to Andrews, today’s Grant Street 

had to be cut. Pliska and Coggin arrived on the 

appointed day, hauling their flying machine on 

the back of a wagon. Somehow they got it 


unloaded from the wagon and cheers went up 

when the engine sputtered to life. With Pliska 

at the controls, the crowd applauded when he 

taxied the strange contraption up Grant Street. 

When it came time for Pliska to make a take off 

attempt, he throttled the engine and dust flew. 

Because of an underpowered engine, the soft 

condition of dirt in the street, and the heat of 

the day, Pliska only managed to make a series of 

short hops into the air, unable to fly the aircraft 

to the satisfaction of a number of cowboys in 

the crowd who demanded more or their money 

back. Later that night, Pliska and Coggin 

loaded up the flying machine and took it back 

to the blacksmith shop where they stored it in 

the rafters of the building. When Pliska’s shop 

was torn down in 1962, the Pliska family 

donated the aircraft to the City of Midland. 

Today, the blacksmith’s aeroplane hangs on 

display from the ceiling of the Midland 

International Airport for all to wonder at the 

genius of his craftsmanship. 

On June 25, 1919, a westbound train pulled 

by Engine No. 25 locomotive steamed into 

Odessa where a large crowd awaited to 

welcome six Doughboys from Ector and Crane 

counties when they returned home from 

fighting in World War I. Privates Thomas G. 

Rabb, James “Pink” Hammett, Corporals Hugh 

L. Hamlett, John E. Webb, Horace J. Dunn and 

William Lawrence Wyche enlisted after being 

picked in the first selective service draft and 

served with the “fighting nineteenth” infantry 

in the blood drenched trenches of St. Mihiel 

and Meuse-Argonne, France. Most of Odessa 

turned out and the arrival of the doughboys set 

in motion a week of festivities climaxed by a 

fourth of July celebration. Dances took place 

almost every night for a week. On July 4 a 

large parade down Grant Street carried the 

doughboys “in a big truck, emblazoned with 

bunting, numerous American flags all around as 

well as the service flag of the 19th. Infantry”. At 

the old red stone courthouse, the doughboys 

took their place of honor on a bandstand. 

Although at least one Ector County veteran 

who fought and died during the Spanish 

American War is known, this 1919 event 

appears to be the first recorded public 

celebration honoring Ector County veterans. 

During the Twentieth Century, veterans from 

the county severed honorably in all theaters of 

World Wars I and II, Korea and in Vietnam. In 

June 1976, during a ceremony at the Odessa 

Cemetery, a large crowd turned out to honor 

the 134 Ector county men who gave their lives 

fighting for their country to that date during 

the Twentieth Century. 

A July 4, 1919, parade welcomes 

home Odessa World War 1 veterans. 

The fifty-four Ector County veterans 

were missed in the work force of a 

population that numbered about 700 

people. Most of the servicemen were 

ex-stock farmers, ranch hands, 

and cowpunchers. 


MUSEUM, BETTY ORBECK COLLECTION, MARY LEE 

ISHMAEL PHOTOGRAPHER. 

Chapter Two ✦ 29


Although the Odessa News Times reported 

that a Professor Gassaway discovered oil and gas 

somewhere near Odessa in 1904 it was not until 

the 1920s that anyone actually drilled a producing 

oil well in Ector County. While the Odessa 

newspaper reported the mysterious “professor” 

worked for the U. S. Geological Survey, later 

research revealed no one by that name had 

ever been employed by the U.S.G.S. Perhaps 

Gassaway had only been an amateur geologist or 

speculator who happened to find oil seeping out 

of the ground somewhere in the county but this 

cannot be confirmed. During the early 1920s, 

reports of oil strikes in west and northwest 

Texas made Texas newspaper headlines. On May 

28, 1923, oil gushed over the top of the derrick 

at the famous Santa Rita No. 1 well in Reagan 

County beginning a decade of oil strikes in west 

Texas. In Ector County, a group of businessmen, 

civic leaders and ranchers hoping to promote 

the exploration for oil locally formed an organization 

to support economic interests they called 

the Odessa Commercial Club. As a result of the 

club’s efforts, the Pennsylvania based Farmers 

Oil Company sent geologist A. B. Bibbins to 

Ector County to look for oil and potash and drill 

test wells. 

After conducting an initial surface survey, 

Bibbins chose the location for the first test well 

inside present day Odessa in an area today surrounded 

by University, Grandview, Eighth and 

Maple Streets. At a ceremony in August 1922 

the daughter of S. R. McKinney, president of the 

club, shattered a bottle of champagne on the 

drilling rig dedicating the Farmer’s No. 1 test 

well while a crowd of onlookers applauded. The 

drilling crews, mostly men from the oilfields of 

Pennsylvania, were presented flowers at the 

ceremony before the drilling commenced. It 

appeared to be a grand start to a promising 

future but the Farmer’s No. 1 did not produce 

any oil because the rotary rig could not penetrate 

the heavy clay beds located about 1,000 

feet below the surface. A second attempt also 

failed at a location about eleven miles north of 

Odessa as did a third one six miles east of 

Odessa in Midland County. Rumors circulated 

that the Pennsylvania drillers lacked sufficient 

knowledge of Ector County geology and a cable 

tool rig to drill deep enough to find any oil. A 

fourth test northeast of Odessa met a similar 

fate. Some $150,000 had been spent in the venture 

with no oil discovered and the test drilling 

came to an end when H. O. Hartzell, president 

Opposite, top: This image by 

photographer Jack Nolan shows an 

oil field fire. The caption reads, 

“A 55,000 barrel tank of crude oil 

going up in smoke.” 



Opposite, bottom: A Texas & Pacific 

Railroad steam locomotive pulls a 

long line of oil tank cars full of 

Permian Basin crude oil. 


MUSEUM, LEE JONES, JR., COLLECTION. 

Below: Robert Estes of Humble Oil 

took this unusual photograph. He was 

making a routine check of the well 

and saw the buffalo. The small herd of 

buffalo belonged to the Glenn Allen 

ranch. The rig was the Humble No. 1 

located twenty miles southwest 



MUSEUM, ROBERT A. ESTES COLLECTION. 

Chapter Two ✦ 31

Until football was established in 

1923, girl’s sports comprised the 

majority of sports activities. Most 

upper-level high school classes were 

made up of female students, as boys 

commonly dropped out of school to 

work. This is the 1915 Odessa High 

School girl’s basketball team. 





of Farmers Oil Company unexpectedly died. 

However, the endeavor could not be considered 

a total failure because the test wells produced no 

small amount of publicity across the state. 

Larger newspapers such as the Fort Worth Star 

Telegram ran stories about the potential of Ector 

County and the Odessa Commercial Club widely 

distributed promotional materials and maps 

concerning the mineral potential of the county. 

Football came to Odessa in 1923 with the 

arrival of a new principal at Odessa High 

School, Elmer Watson. When Watson came on 

the scene the only sports activity he found at 

O.H.S. consisted of a lone basketball goal 

located on the side of the school building. 

Because so many boys dropped out of school to 

go to work as cowboys and they had little 

interest in education, the upper grades at the 

high school were mostly composed of female 

students. The new principal thought it a good 

idea to begin a football program to hopefully 

encourage the young men of Odessa to stay in 

school. Principal Watson came up with some 

old uniforms and equipment from Howard 

Payne University and the playing of football 

commenced in Odessa. Since the colors of 


Howard Payne were purple and gold and the 

university called its team the Yellow Jackets, the 

new O.H.S. team adapted the same colors and 

name becoming the Odessa High School Yellow 

Jackets. Because of so few male students being 

enrolled at O.H.S. the first Yellow Jacket team 

was composed of both students and some 

teachers. The team lacked a football however 

and used a basketball for practice until a new 

football arrived in the mail. They played at a 

makeshift field on North Grant Street, dressing 

in a tiny room located beneath a water tower. 

The games met with immediate success and 

soon respectable numbers of fans started 

showing up. Some of the spectators helped out 

by clearing brush, goat heads and sand burrs 

from the playing field. As time went on, the 

entire town of Odessa turned out for the games 

with local businesses closing their doors at 

game time. Spectators got so excited by the 

games that arguments and fistfights became 

almost commonplace. In their first four years 

of play, the O.H.S. Yellow Jackets won three 

district titles. In 1929, the team dropped the 

Yellow Jacket name and the team became 

known as the Broncos. 

In the fall of 1925 Josuha “Josh” Cosden 

signed an oil and gas lease with Midland rancher 

and businessman W. E. Connell. Connell, 

a well-known rancher and businessman 

came to Midland in 1886 where he chartered 

the First National Bank of Midland. He owned 

several west Texas cattle ranches including 

30,000 acres in Ector County located sixteen 

miles southwest of Odessa not far from the railroad 

stop of Judkins. Josh Cosden, a millionaire 

oil magnate owned the Cosden Oil and Gas 

Company and in 1913 built one of the world’s 

largest refineries in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Although 

he was said to have squandered two fortunes, 

his wealth about mid 1920s was estimated to be 

greater than $50 million. 

The Ector County Democrat was an 

early newspaper owned and edited by 

Jess L. Frame. The office was located 

in the 200 block of North Grant 

Street. This image of the inside of the 

office shows Mr. Frame standing on 

the left. 





OF THE PETROLEUM MUSEUM, ABELL-HANGER 


Chapter Two ✦ 33

Right: Jack Nolan’s picture of 1930- 

1931 Odessa shows the old Bankhead 

Highway south of the railroad tracks. 

The main highway came into Odessa 

on Third Street, turned south on 

North Grant Street, crossed the 

railroad tracks and went west to the 

city of Monahans. 


MUSEUM, RICHARD DONNELLY COLLECTION. 

Below: Odessa’s first water tower is 

pictured sometime after 1927. 




BASIN, ODESSA, TEXAS, 


Cosden owned luxurious homes in New 

York, Florida, and Rhode Island where he 

enjoyed racing horses and being known as one 

of the elite of New York high society. Josh 

Cosden and his wife entertained the Prince of 

Wales, who later became King Edward VIII 

of England in 1924 as their houseguest. The 

Connell-Cosden lease covered some 

twenty-seven sections of land in Ector 

and Crane Counties. When the Connell 

No. 1 well reached a depth of 3,495 feet 

in October 1926, it flowed eighty 

barrels into a storage tank with an 

estimated 2,600 feet of oil remaining 

in the hole. By the following July, the 

well produced seventy-five barrels a 

day. The Odessa Chamber of Commerce 

sent Cosden a telegram congratulating 

him on the achievement expressing 

the hope that the millionaire oilman 

would build a refinery in Ector County. 

Cosden, however, proved to be less 

than enthusiastic about the potential of 

the well and the Judkins field. On August 12, 

he sold his Ector County leases to the Texas 

Company and turned his attention to the 

development of oil property and a refinery in 

Howard County. 

When Barney Hubbs came to Odessa in 1926 

to publish a newspaper most folks assumed he 

would go broke. After all, nobody in their right 

mind would try to get into the newspaper 

business in a little cow town populated with 

only 750 residents. Others had tried and failed. 

When Barney showed up, Odessa had a drug 

store, a grocery store, a bank, one restaurant, a 

movie theater and no newspaper. Such didn’t 

deter Barney Hubbs, however, he knew from 

first hand experience what it was like to be 

broke. His family lost everything when their 

cattle ranch went under in 1908. 

Hubbs grew up in Pecos and that is where he 

got ink in his blood. In those years, Pecos was 

twice as large as Odessa and had two newspapers. 

He befriended Billy Leeman whose father 

owned the Reeves County Record. Barney worked 

for the Record before and after school and during 

vacation learning how to set type in the 

printing office. A few years later, the Record 

merged with the Pecos Times and Barney worked 

for them. After serving in the U.S. Navy in 

World War I where he worked on a newspaper 

in France, Barney returned to Pecos hoping to 

get his old job back. But the Times had no job 

openings. So Hubbs found a job in the oil fields 

building wooden derricks for a time. One of the 

wooden derricks he built now sits on display in 

the Monahans City Park. 

In 1921, Barney opened a print shop in Pecos 

and started publishing the Pecos Gusher to compete 

with his former employer. His venture 

prospered and in four years he bought out the 

Times and merged the two newspapers. In the 

process of the merger, he acquired more printing 

equipment than he needed. Henry Webb, 

manager of the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, 

knew Barney owned two printing presses and 

convinced him to start a newspaper in Odessa. 

Previously, a string of Odessa newspapers had 

come and gone including the Odessa Weekly, 

The Times, the Ector County Democrat, and the 

Odessa Herald. Going broke with a newspaper 

was nothing new in Odessa. 

At first Barney didn’t have time or a good way 

to transport his printing press to Odessa. Since 

he only had one Linotype machine, he printed 

the Ector County News in Pecos before hauling 

the papers to Odessa after midnight in the early 

morning hours before the heat of the day. The 

trip took four hours because of the deep, drifting 

sand that covered the road at Monahans. 

Within a few months, Barney changed the name 

of the newspaper to the Odessa News. He hired 

Ruby Webb, wife of Ector County Sheriff Reeder 

Webb, along with Mrs. Tom Harris to write for 

the paper. 

The Citizens National Bank of Odessa 

was forced to close its doors in 1930 

after a drop in crude oil prices and 

interest in east Texas oil discoveries. 

Standing left to right: Bob Bates, 

Frank Bates, Reeder Webb, and 

Henry Pegues. 





Chapter Two ✦ 35

Prohibition hit the Permian Basin and 

the rest of the United States in 1927. 

Ector County law men, Sheriff Reeder 

Webb in cowboy hat and A. W. Moore 

in chair with confiscated 

“white lightening.” 




BASIN, ODESSA, TEXAS WILLIFORD 

SMITH COLLECTION. 

In November 1927 Ector County Sheriff 

Reeder Webb made his own statewide headlines 

when he became the first Texas lawman to 

collect the $10,000 “Dead Bandit” reward 

offered by the Austin based Texas Bankers 

Association. A veteran of World War I, Webb 

served as sheriff of Ector County for eighteen 

years from 1923 until 1941. It has been said 

that Webb caught more bootleggers than any 

other Texas sheriff patrolling the county with 

his large black German bulldog he named 

“Bootlegger”. According to a 1929 Odessa News 

Times article, the sheriff got the bulldog as 

a pup “along with a good sized load of corn 

liquor, hence the name”. Bootlegger is 

described as being of kindly disposition but 

apparently capable of being thoroughly 

unkindly when necessary. The newspaper went 

on to say that the dog is probably the only 

bootlegger who ever associated with the sheriff 

of Ector County without coming to grief. 

During the hard times of 1920s before the 

days of two-way police radios and modern 

highways, bank robbery became almost 

commonplace across Texas. Desperate criminals 

found themselves able to rob large and small 

town banks and quickly drive away never to be 

seen again. According to the Texas banking 

magazine The Texas Banker’s Record, 140 bank 

robberies took place in Texas between 1920 

and 1928 with the robbers stealing an 

estimated $564,065. As a result, the bankers 

group posted flyers in windows of their 

member banks with the following ominous 

warning to would be criminals. 

“The Texas Bankers Association offers a 

standing reward of $5,000 for each dead bank 

robber, killed while in the act of robbing a 

member bank in Texas. No limit as to the place 

of the killing-in the bank, as they climb into 

their car, ten or twenty miles down the road as 

they flee, or while resisting a posse-giving chase. 

This reward applies to night attacks as well as 

daylight hold ups. The Association will not give 

one cent for live robbers.” 


Early in the morning of November 25, 1927, 

two men pulled up to the side door of the 

Citizen’s National Bank in downtown Odessa in 

a stolen automobile. They intended to rob the 

then prosperous Odessa bank said to contain 

over one half million dollars in cash in its vault. 

What the two bank robbers didn’t know was 

that Sheriff Webb had been tipped off and 

knew of their intentions. Armed with shotguns 

and rifles Sheriff Webb, Ector County deputy 

Tom Jones, Midland County Sheriff A. C. 

Francis and Texas Cattle Raisers Association 

Inspector J. W. Hogan waited near the bank in 

the darkness. When one of the men broke the 

glass out of one of the bank doors, the lawmen 

called for the pair to surrender. Instead, the two 

robbers pulled out pistols and started shooting. 

The lawmen returned fire killing one of the 

men instantly. The other man died of his 

wounds the following day. The Texas Bankers 

Association sent Sheriff Webb a check for 

$10,000 on November 26, 1927, to be divided 

among the four officers. 

Odessa got its city charter in 1927 and 

started collecting taxes. The town had 

hundreds of lots with delinquent tax bills and 

Barney Hubbs agreed to print tax sale notices in 

his newspaper in exchange for the lots that 

hadn’t sold. It proved to be a profitable venture. 

The newspaperman became the owner of some 

one hundred lots located up and down Grant 

Street with an average tax bill of about $12.50 

on each lot. He sold one lot at Third and Grant 

Streets for $25.00 to George Elliot who built a 

three-story brick hotel that is remembered 

as an Odessa landmark before it was torn 

down in 1983 to make room for a new police 

station. Barney sold enough of the lots to 

build a new office just east of the Ector 

County courthouse. 

Rivalry between Odessa and Midland existed 

even then. In recalling his newspaper days in 

Odessa, Barney remembered, “Midland always 

looked down on Odessa as a stepchild in those 

days. Midland was regarded as a high-collared 

bunch and we were the poor boys over in 

Odessa, but it was friendly”. When the Midland 

newspaper came out with a story announcing 

that the City of Midland passed an ordinance 

outlawing the parking of old field trucks on 

the streets of Midland, Barney seized the 

opportunity to promote Odessa. The Odessa 

News ran a special edition inviting oil field 

trucks to park anywhere they wanted to 

in Odessa. Barney distributed 5,000 copies of 

this edition. 

By 1928 Odessa had grown considerably but 

Pecos called Barney home. He decided to sell 

the Odessa News. Barney found a buyer for the 

paper, Frank P. Files. He sold the newspaper 

on credit with an escrow agreement that if 

Files missed a payment; the title reverted back 

to Barney. Then Hubbs ran into a political 

disagreement with the buyer. When Odessa’s 

first mayor, Sam McKinney, tried to get reelected, 

he found no support from Frank Files. 

When Reeder Webb on the right, 

retired from office as sheriff he 

returned a gun he had borrowed 

from W. H. Rhodes. Sheriff Webb 

supposedly carried the gun for as long 

as he was in office. 




BASIN, ODESSA, TEXAS, WILLIFORD 

SMITH COLLECTION. 

Chapter Two ✦ 37

Files supported a “newcomer” for mayor. 

Barney made an enemy of Frank Files when he 

went to Odessa to bolster Sam McKinney’s 

campaign. McKinney won the election. Not 

long after that, Files defaulted on his note and 

Barney Hubbs found himself in search of 

another buyer for his newspaper. 

Hubbs then sold the paper to Abe Whipkey 

of Colorado City. Whipkey wanted to get his 

son Bob, and son-in-law, Rush Moody, into the 

news business. In later years, Bob Whipkey 

became editor of the Big Spring Herald. When 

the younger Whipkey and Moody had a 

falling out, they simply walked away from 

the Odessa newspaper. Abe Whipkey called 

Hubbs and told him he simply couldn’t meet 

the payments and turned the newspaper back 

to him. Business in Pecos prevented Barney 

from running both newspapers so once again 

he searched for someone to take over the 

Odessa operation. Barney contacted Ralph 

Shuffler, a long-time newspaperman in Olney, 

Texas, who had sold his paper and asked 

him if wanted to get back into the newspaper 

game. Shuffler accepted the offer and 

operated the Odessa News for several years 

before turning the business over to his son 

Henderson Shuffler. The younger Shuffler 

consolidated the Odessa News with the Dailey 

Bulletin changing the name of Barney Hubb’s 

former newspaper to the Odessa American 

in 1940. 

Above: This aerial view of Odessa 

was taken in 1928. Odessa had a 

population of an estimated 4,500- 

5,000 residents. The business section 

was less than a dozen blocks. 

The newly completed Elliott Hotel 

on the southwest corner of Third 

and Grant Streets is the most 

imposing building. 




Right: This view of downtown Odessa 

looks northeast, c. 1961-1962. 






Above: This was the scene in Odessa 

on Grant Street in 1935, when Sewell 

Ford received twenty-two new cars for 

its grand opening. Odessa was just 

beginning to feel the new oil boom 

and had a growing population of 

about 2,500. 





Center: Men from the Dunn Brothers 

Truck Line pose with their trucks and 

equipment just west of Odessa 

in 1931. 




Below: Downtown Wink, Texas, 

is seen during the 1930s oil boom. 

Winkler County’s population grew 

from 45 in 1925 to 6,784 in 1930. 


MUSEUM, BETTY ORBECK COLLECTION, JACK 

NOLAN, PHOTOGRAPHER. 

Chapter Two ✦ 39

THE GREAT RABBIT ROPING WRANGLE 

In a 1932 Odessa News Times article, Henderson Shuffler wrote about how the “Great Rabbit Roping Wrangle” came to be. 

“The origin of the now celebrated sport of bagging the bounding bunny commonly known as rabbit roping goes back some six 

months when a prominent Ector County ranchman was taking a trio of Carlsbad, New Mexico, visitors into the sand hills to hunt for 

Indian relics. They were riding into the sand in a wagon, the only feasible means of negotiating those shifty wastes when a full grown 

jack rabbit, startled from his noon day slumber by their passing, sprang from beneath the wheels and flashed across the landscape.” 

“West Texas cowhands from time immortal have tossed their lassos at every moving wild thing and since this cowman had his lasso 

in hand, he could not refrain from tossing his loop in the general direction of the rabbit. The loop circled over the head of the flying fur 

ball and a quick jerk of the wrist sent the rabbit tumbling.” 

“When the cowman pulled the captive into the wagon and held it up by his ears, quivering and kicking, for his friends to see they 

made much of his accomplishment.” 

“Modestly, he admitted that such stunts were far from uncommon in this land where men are all experts with the lasso. His friends 

returned home and told tall tales of the uncanny dexterity of the lasso wielders in this section who thought nothing of going forth with 

only a rope and bringing in whole herds of fast footed hares in a morning. The stories naturally drifted into a newspaper and thence to 

many other papers and eventually back to Odessa where it was considered to be quite a joke.” 

Below: The World’s Largest Jackrabbit 

is a favorite tourist attraction in 

Odessa. The jackrabbit was the 

subject of great controversy in the 

jackrabbit roping contest of 1932. 





While the hard times of the Great Depression 

of the 1930s dominated newspaper articles during 

those years one event that took place in 

Odessa in 1932 brought at least some humor to 

the difficult decade. Inspired as a publicity 

stunt, the “Great Rabbit Roping Wrangle” as it 

became known started out as a little known 

addition to the 1932 annual Memorial Day 

Odessa Rodeo sponsored by the Earl S. Bailey 

Post of the American Legion. Included in the 

program of the rodeo were the expected events; 

bulldogging, wild cow milking, calf roping and 

wild mule riding. However in an effort to spice 

up the program and play a joke, rodeo promoters 

added a previously unheard of new event, 

that being jackrabbit roping. 

Opposite: Grace Hendricks set a new 

record in rabbit roping at the State 

Convention of the American Legion in 

1933. Her record-winning time of five 

seconds beat the eleven-and-a-half 

second time of the previous record 

holder, Sheriff Arden Ross of 

Loving County. 




BASIN. ODESSA, TEXAS 


Although the rodeo promoters 

assumed nobody would actually enter 

their tongue and cheek event since 

they believed it to be impossible to 

actually rope a jackrabbit, the interest 

and opposition that emerged surprised 

them. Not everyone saw the 

humor when newspapers as far away 

as Denver, Colorado, published the 

story of the Odessa roping. Stuart S. 

Bruce of Denver sent a strong letter 

of protest signed by twenty one 

Colorado residents demanding the 

event described as ““inhumane and 

demoralizing” be cancelled. When 

more letters of protest arrived, Ector 

County Sheriff Reeder Webb issued an 

order forbidding the holding of the 

rabbit roping. While the sheriff’s 

action to ban the roping brought the 

support of the Albany, New York, 

American Humane Society it proved 

not to be very popular in Ector 

County. In response to Sheriff Webb’s 

action, the Legion hired a lawyer and 

circulated their own petition to stop 

the sheriff from attempting to do away 

with the rabbit-roping event. The matter 

went to court on May 23, 1933. 

Ector County Judge Henry Webb 

ruled the roping could be held and 

firmly stated, “I deeply resent the fact 

that a few old hens and antiquated 

roosters from Colorado or anywhere 

else attempted to infringe on the 

rights of the citizens of Odessa”. 

Although the roping attracted some 

fifty contestants, the Legion first 

needed to capture enough jackrabbits 

to meet the demand. Some two 

hundred Odessans took part in a 

rabbit round up about a week before 

the rodeo but the speeding bunnies mostly 

outran their pursuers. Since only eleven rabbits 

got bagged, a second round up took place 

the following day with a more fruitful result. 

On the day of the rodeo, the largest rodeo 

crowd in years turned out. A large pen had 

been constructed to contain the rabbits and 

four unhorsed ropers at a time stepped over the 

fence to rope their rabbit. Sheriff Arden Ross of 

Loving County, New Mexico won the event, 

roping a rabbit in only nine seconds. Following 

the roping a medical examination of the rabbits 

showed none had been injured although 

four human contestants had nearly collapsed 

from exhaustion. Sheriff Ross’s nine-second 

rabbit roping record stood until 1933 

when Grace Hendricks roped a jackrabbit in 

only five seconds. 

Chapter Two ✦ 41

Men and training planes pose in 

formation at the Midland Army Air 

Field. Several ranches in the Permian 

Basin provided practice bombing 

ranges during World War II. 


COMMEMORATIVE AIR POWER 

MUSEUM COLLECTION. 

In 1938, Ector County opened the doors of a 

public library. Housed in the old jail building 

located on the northeast corner of Courthouse 

Square in Odessa, the library came about after 

the Odessa Mother’s Club petitioned county 

commissioners. The commissioners apportioned 

$609.27 to convert the jail into a library. 

Lila Box became the first librarian and in its first 

year of operation the library made available to 

patrons some 800 volumes and circulated 4,346 

books. By 1939 the library’s collection grew to 

2,500 books necessitating the conversion of the 

second floor of the old jail into a children’s 

section. In the spring of 1942 the library held 

some 6,400 books and the county built a 

new 8,000 square foot library building at the 

corner of Seventh and Lee streets. Velma Barrett 

became the librarian a position she held for the 

next twenty-one years. During the early 1940s 

the library sponsored a collection of books at 

the Southside Elementary School before moving 

them to a nearby community center that became 

a branch library that operated until 1960. In 

1957 the county expanded the main library 

building adding 8,000 square feet to the structure. 

By this time, the library’s collection had 

grown to almost 51,000 books circulating 

249,197 volumes that year. Also that year, the 

Junior Service League purchased a used book 

mobile and the library started a regular schedule 

of serving outlying areas in the county. The 

library’s book mobile service operated for 

almost twenty years before being discontinued. 

In 1981, the main library moved to its present 

location at 321 W. 5th Street. 

In the 1930s technology gave birth to a new 

competitor for the small town newspaper when 

broadcast radio stations became reality in Ector 

County. Until 1935, there were no radio stations 

between Fort Worth and El Paso but Barney 

Hubbs changed that on October 23, 1935, when 

he put KIUN, the first radio station in west 

Texas, on the air in Pecos. In Midland KRLH, 

later known as KCRS, began broadcasting two 

months later. This was the beginning of Barney 

Hubbs’ Cactus Broadcasting Network. Barny’s 

first radio stations were primitive affairs. He 

hired engineers to build the transmitters and 

fabricated radio towers out of drill-stem pipe, 

a considerable feat of West Texas ingenuity. To 

build the towers, Barney welded together 200 

feet of drill-stem pipe, painted it, and installed 

warning lights before raising it, “like my dad 

used to raise windmills with a gin pole”. Barney 

Hubbs introduced broadcast radio to Odessa 

and Ector County when he put KRIG on the air 

in 1946. 

By 1940, Odessa reached a population of 

9,573 residents. That figure rapidly increased 

during World War II. By the end of the 1930s, 


the state of Texas ranked first in the United 

States in the production of oil with more than 

468 million barrels of oil. Much of this oil came 

from the oil fields of east Texas but as the war 

progressed the balance shifted to the Permian 

Basin. Ector County offered the United States 

war effort the potential to produce huge 

amounts of oil. The consumption of gasoline 

and oil during the war caused prices to rapidly 

increase intensifying drilling activities. In addition, 

the clear skies and wide-open spaces of 

west Texas made the place ideal for the training 

of airmen during the war. 

In 1940 and 1941 the Civil Aviation 

Administration operated a ground school located 

north of Odessa for the training of pilots and 

crews. In September 1942, the U. S. Army Air 

Corps opened the Midland Army Military Flying 

School ten miles east of Odessa. Although the 

“Bombardier School” as it became known to 

local residents had been located in Midland, its 

presence still had a profound impact on Odessa 

as well as a housing shortage that fueled a building 

boom in both Midland and Odessa. Building 

permit applications reached an all time high in 

both counties. During the war years, the U.S. 

government imposed rent-ceiling restrictions to 

prevent greedy landlords from overcharging 

during a housing shortage. Almost daily newspaper 

stories reminded Odessians of the vital 

need of national defense. There was a shortage 

of schoolteachers and gasoline could only be 

purchased with a ration card. 

The Midland flying school sat on 860 acres of 

land and some 1,500 officers and men trained 

250 students with as many as 75 multiengine 

bombers. As early as July 1941 the federal housing 

officer addressed the local Odessa community 

about housing shortages and announced a 

government grant of $210,000 to aid in the construction 

of public water works and sewers. 

During the war years, the population of Odessa 

tripled growing from 9,462 in 1940 to 30,000 

and growing by 1945. Building reached a high 

point in Odessa in November 1941 with 2,200 

workers on a payroll of $108,500. Local newspapers 

printed appeals to homeowners to rent a 

room to persons stationed at the flying school. 

Pictured is the Nose Art Exhibit of 

World War II planes featured at the 

Commemorative Air Power Museum. 


COMMEMORATIVE AIR POWER 

MUSEUM COLLECTION. 

Chapter Two ✦ 43

Above: The Odessa Chuck Wagon 

Gang celebrated its seventieth 

anniversary in 2010. The gang has 

served as an ambassador for Odessa 

with its barbeque feeds throughout the 

country. On the ground, left to right: 

George Keslar, Dudley Bean, Joe 

Cozby, and R. E. Lee, back row: 

Alex Ogilvy, John D. Mitchell, 

Tom Brandon, and Tom Scott, 1947. 





Opposite: Chuck Wagon Gang 

Members and Rep. Ed Foreman on 

the steps of the U. S. Capitol Building 

in 1963. The Chuck Wagon Gang 

participated in the Western Culture 

Exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian 

Institute and fed over 100,000 people. 

Left to right: L. E. Goins, Robert Hail, 

Jack Torvsen, Bill Green, Don 

Stafford, Tilden Jones, Congressman 

Ed Foreman, V. W. Parr, and 

Hal Lambert. 





The Odessa Chuck Wagon Gang came into 

existence about the time of the flying school. 

The gang found lots of hungry soldiers and 

aviation personnel and it is said would have 

gone out of existence in these early years had it 

not “been for feeding the army personnel during 

those lean days of meat rationing”. The Odessa 

Bar B Que group fed soldiers five nights a week 

in Floyd Gwin Park. The gang fed groups of 500 

to 2,500 fifty weeks out of the year. 

The Odessa Defense School taught women 

how to weld. Odessa housing remained critical 

through out the war. In August 1944 an Odessa 

American article stated; “No rooms…no teachers…no 

teachers…no school”. Housing remained 

in short supply and the school district desperately 

needed to hire fifteen new teachers. In 

February 1943 food rationing started in Odessa 

and many people cultivated victory gardens. One 

local grocer’s ad humorously proclaimed; “Cheer 

up! Women, peanut butter, artichokes and hearts 

are not rationed”! 

In the summer of 1941, the City of Odessa 

set up a defense council to prepare for an attack 

or national emergency. The council established 

committees for aviation, soldier recreation, 

defense housing, and war bonds and savings 

stamps. Ector County young people could train 

as defense workers. A home guard unit comprised 

of forty men armed with rifles from the 

U.S. Army did their part. The privately funded 

Odessa Flying School offered seventy-two houses 

of school credit in aviation to the youth of the 

Permian Basin. More than 225 students graduated 

from the school. 

The oil fields of Ector County grew considerably 

during the war years and oil field supply 

companies prospered and increased in number. 

In 1938, Odessa had 56 supply houses doing 

an annual volume of $7,500,000. By 1946 the 

number of supply businesses grew to 165 and 

they did 80,000,000 worth of business. In 

1940, there existed 14,000 producing oil wells 

in the county and by 1946 the number of wells 

grew to 17,951. Also during the war years an 

Ector County event came into existence that 

continues to promote the oil industry world 

wide even today. 

In 1940, Permian Basin business leaders put 

together the first “Little International Oil 

Show”. The event in time proved to be anything 

but a small town effort to promote the oil 

industry. The first Oil Show took place in the 

Ector County Auditorium in Floyd Gwin Park 

attracting some 11,000 visitors. The theme of 

the show was “Oil and Defense” with Odessa 


merchants participating by decorating their 

storefronts and setting up exhibits of their 

goods and services. A downtown parade 

featuring all sorts of oil field equipment and 

trucks as well as marching bands began the 

show attended by such dignitaries as Elliot 

Roosevelt, son of President Franklin Roosevelt. 

Texas governor W. Lee “Pappy” O”Daniel 

performed with his popular band the Hillbilly 

Boys. More than sixty exhibitors displayed their 

Chapter Two ✦ 45

The Elliot Hotel was Odessa’s first 

large hotel, c. 1930s. 


MUSEUM, JACK NOLAN COLLECTION. 

products at the two-day event. By 1950, the 

Permian Basin Oil Show displayed hundreds of 

exhibits to crowds of more 70,000. In 1980, the 

oil show contained more than 900 exhibits and 

the crowds had grown to over 500,000. The 

1990 Oil Show celebrated the event’s fifty years 

of existence. 

In the summer of 1948, a future president of 

the United States showed up in Odessa for a 

new job. Born in Massachusetts, the then twenty-four 

year old George Herbert Walker Bush 

knew very little about the oil industry. As he 

later put it, “Lucky for me, there wasn’t much 

attention paid to resumes when I arrived in 

Odessa, Texas, in June 1948. Otherwise I 

wouldn’t have been hired for my first job.” 

Following his service in World War II as a U.S. 

Navy pilot, Bush finished his degree at Yale 

University and came to West Texas when he 

found employment as a sales clerk for Dresser 

Industries in their Odessa Ideco store. Bush and 

his wife Barbara rented a shotgun house on east 

Seventh Street that had been converted into two 

very small apartments. In those days, Odessa 

was full of shotgun houses, small hastily built 

one-room wooden structures so named because 

it was said possible to shoot a shotgun in the 

front door and out the back door of a shotgun 

house without hitting anything in between. And 

housing in Odessa continued to be in short supply 

in Odessa following the war. The Bush’s 

small apartment had few comforts with the 

exception of indoor plumbing, something of a 

luxury that many of their Odessa neighbors did 

not have. 

The future president later recalled the couples’ 

cramped living conditions in the shotgun house. 

“We shared the bathroom with a young lady 

that had a very active social life, especially after 

the sun went down. The wall dividing the two 

apartments wasn’t too thick, and we could hear 

her entertaining all kinds of folks. Men kept 

arriving and departing, and the toilet kept 

flushing, all night long. It was, in Dan Jenkins’ 

phrase, ‘Life its own self.’ But let it be said that 

in the daylight hours our young bathroom sharer 

was as quite and peaceful a neighbor as we could 

ask for.” 

Bush traveled throughout the Permian Basin 

on a regular sales route for Ideco and the couple 

lived in Odessa until 1950. 

The petroleum demands of World War II 

caused the economy of Ector County to boom 

and the years following the war also saw oil 

activity in the county continue to increase. 

The war provided new petroleum refining 

technology that had a considerable economic 

impact on Ector County and the Permian Basin. 


New products made from crude oil such as 

liquefied petroleum gas or LPG became 

possible. LPG could be bottled making it 

available where natural gas pipelines were not 

present. Other petroleum products such as 

ethylene and polyethylene could be used to 

make plastic goods. Recognizing the potential of 

this new refining technology, E. G. Rodman and 

W. D. Noel purchased the Odessa Natural 

Gasoline Company in 1946 and set out to 

establish the petrochemical industry in Odessa. 

The El Paso Natural Gas Company built a 

butadiene and styrene plant in Odessa and in 

1955 the General Tire and Rubber Company 

announced their intention to build a rubber 

plant in the city. The first of these plants was 

completed three years later at a cost of $45 

million. The new petrochemical complex 

located just south of I-20 in Odessa continued 

to grow. By the mid 1970s, the Odessa 

petrochemical complex had grown into a 300 

million dollar facility. 

Odessa College had its beginnings in 1938 

when Ector County voters approved a bond 

election funding the establishment of a junior 

college. The Odessa Junior College District, 

however, did not formally come into existence 

until August 1946. Dr. Murry H. Fly, superintendent 

of the Ector County Public Schools 

since 1925, became the first president of the 

new college. Initially, Odessa College classes 

were held at Odessa High School with some 184 

Odessa College students enrolled. In May 1948 

Ector County voters passed a $200,000 bond 

issue to fund the construction of a new building 

for the college. The following summer, in 1949, 

the first permanent structure located on a fiveacre 

lot located on North Grant Street was completed. 

By 1950, enrollment at Odessa College 

increased to 1,565 students and five years later 

more than 4,000 students enrolled for classes. 

The year 1952 saw the construction of several 

new buildings including a gymnasium, a home 

making building, and a vocational shop. The 

Four men are seen next to oil that 

was trapped in a canyon a mile away 

from the well site in Crockett County. 

An earthen dam was hurriedly built 

to contain the escaping oil. Thirty 

thousand barrels or more made 

this temporary river until pipeline 

executives could devise means to get it 

back to storage. 




Chapter Two ✦ 47

Right: The first Boy Scout National 

Jamboree was held in Washington, 

D.C. in 1937, and was attended by 

the local Comanche Trails scout troop. 

The scouts made all their own 

costumes and tepees. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE IRAAN BOY 

SCOUT HUT MUSEUM, IRAAN, TEXAS. 

Below: The West Texas Delegation to 

the 1937 National Boy Scout National 

Jamboree in Washington, D. C. 

reported a brisk horned frog trade. 

The horned frogs were selling like hot 

cakes for twenty-five cents each. The 

boys said they could have sold all the 

frogs in Texas if they could have 

gotten them. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE IRAAN BOY 

SCOUT HUT MUSEUM, IRAAN, TEXAS. 

Opposite, top: Stock Show Parade in 

downtown Odessa, 1950s. 





Opposite, bottom: An Odessa College 

precision marching team, The 

Señoritas de las Rosas, entertained 

throughout the Permian Basin. 

College President, Murry H. Fly is 

seated in the center. 





campus grew to thirty-five acres of land in 1957 

when the student body reached 4,888. KOCV 

radio, the Odessa College student broadcast 

radio station went on the air in 1964 with the 

construction of a 300-foot radio tower and 

studio on the campus. Also in 1964, Odessa 

College underwent the construction of two dormitories, 

Parker Hall for women and Downs 

Hall for men. In 1969, Odessa College had 

9,877 students enrolled with 239 graduating. 

That same year the college opened a branch 

campus in Midland after voters approved joining 

the Odessa College District. 

Odessa College is the home of the Globe of 

the Great Southwest, an authentic replica of the 

famous Globe Theatre originally built in 1598 in 

London, England, for William Shakespeare’s acting 

company. The idea for the campus theatre 

came from Majorie Morris, an instructor of 

English who started teaching at Odessa College 

in 1951. Mrs. Morris had previously studied 

in England and wrote her master’s thesis on 

Shakespeare’s theatre at North Texas State 

College where she graduated in 1950. The 

Globe of the Great Southwest came into existence 

largely because of her fundraising efforts 

and dedication to bringing an appreciation of 

Shakespeare to west Texas. The theatre opened 

in 1968 and hosts the Odessa Summer 

Shakespeare Festival and other events such as 

the Odessa Brand New Opree. It seats 410 

patrons and because of its design is known for 

its exceptional acoustics. More than 250,000 

people have attended productions in the Globe 

of the Southwest. 

Odessa College granted associate degrees to 

more than 2,500 students during its first twentyfive 

years of its existence with more than 

132,000 students attending classes. No small 

number of those attending went on to earn 


Chapter Two ✦ 49

Right: The Globe of the Great 

Southwest is an authentic replica of 

William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre 

built in 1598 in Southwark, London, 

England. Each year, the Bard’s plays 

come to life in the Odessa 

Shakespeare Festival. 





Below: The Odessa courthouse prior 

to the rebuilding in 1962. 




BASIN, ODESSA, TEXAS 

degrees at other colleges and universities. During 

this time, athletic teams at Odessa College won 

more than 40 national titles. Odessa College 

teams have included basketball, baseball, track, 

rodeo and tennis. Today Odessa College is made 

up of twenty-five buildings located on eighty 

acres of land. Enrollment at the college in 1999 

reached 4,778 students with a faculty of 269. 

Higher education in Ector County advanced 

further in 1969 when the Texas legislature created 

the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. 

In March 1970, the University of Texas Board of 

Regents appointed Dr. Billy Howard Amstead as 

president of the new university located in northeast 

Odessa. In the spring of 1972, construction 

of permanent buildings including classrooms, a 

library and laboratories took place on the new 

campus. U.T.P.B. opened for classes in the fall of 

1973. Initially, U.T.P.B. accepted only junior, 

senior and master’s degree graduate students and 

the first year’s enrollment numbered 1,112 students. 

Many of these first students were part 

time, older students hoping to 

complete their education while 

continuing to hold jobs to support 

their families. In 1984 the 

enrollment stabilized at 2,000 

students. U.T.P.B. became a fouryear 

university in 1984 when 

Texas Governor Ann Richards 

signed a bill to add freshmen and 

sophomore classes. The first 

freshman class numbered 181 

students in the fall of 1991. In 

1996, the university opened the 

Falcon’s Nest student housing 

complex on the campus. The following 

year the Texas legislature 

approved $25.8 million in tuition 

revenue bonds to construct an 

80,000 square foot library and 

lecture center, renovate existing 

buildings and construct art 


studios. By the year 2000, the university offered 

twenty-five undergraduate and seventeen master’s 

degree programs. Student enrollment in 

the fall of that year reached 2,273 with a faculty 

of 150. The Commission on Colleges of the 

Southern Association of Colleges accredits 

U.T.P.B. to award bachelors and master’s degrees. 

The Presidential Museum and Leadership 

Library is located on the campus of U.T.P.B. in 

Odessa at 4919 University. Dedicated to the 

office of President of the United States, the 

museum was established in 1965 and is the only 

one of its kind. It contains unique exhibits such 

as campaign memorabilia, political cartoons, 

First Lady miniatures and an extensive 

presidential library of some 5,000 volumes 

including memoirs and documents of many U.S. 

Presidents. In addition, the former Odessa 

home of Presidents George H. W. Bush and 

George W. Bush is preserved at the museum. 

The museum also contains artifacts of U. S. Vice 

Presidents, presidential candidates, Presidents 

of the Republic of Texas as well as the 

Confederate States of America. 

Each fall, a frequently misunderstood mania 

sweeps Odessa when the high school football 

season commences. Football seems to have 

always been a big part of life in Odessa. Probably 

the popularity of high school football in Odessa 

and indeed through out west Texas can be traced 

to the lack of other forms of entertainment in the 

oil towns of the region during the first half of the 

twentieth century. In those days even some oil 

field company camps had baseball teams to offer 

entertainment to their employees and their families. 

Football became the most popular sport in 

more recent times and the sport brought no 

small amount of nationwide notoriety to Odessa. 

The Odessa High Yellow Jackets of the 1920s 

introduced football in the town and its popularity 

soared as a result. President George H. W. 

Bush took notice of high school football when he 

lived in Odessa in 1949 recalling, 

“I had played baseball and soccer in college 

and knew how intense athletic competition can 

get but Barbra and I never experienced anything 

like the fever that took over Odessa during the 

football season. It was more than a game, it was a 

total experience. There were overflow crowds on 

Friday nights for high school games, and whole 

towns would travel by caravan to neighboring 

towns to settle bragging rights for the upcoming 

years. When the Odessa Broncos took on Abilene 

or San Angelo or Midland—especially Midland— 

there wasn’t much point of trying to talk about 

anything else either twenty-four hours before or 

twenty-four hours after the game.” 

When Permian High School opened its 

doors in 1959, a new era of Odessa football 

commenced. The Permian Panthers football 

team won Texas state championships in 1965, 

1972, 1980, 1984 and 1989 becoming one of 

The Mesa Building is the most 

familiar structure at The University of 

Texas of the Permian Basin, but in 

2000 it was joined by the Visual Arts 

Studios, and in 2001 by the Library 

Lecture Center. In 2011 two new 

structures, the Student Activities 

Center and the Science and 

Technology Complex, will open to 

form a quadrangle on this attractive 

West Texas Campus. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 

TEXAS OF THE PERMIAN BASIN. 

Chapter Two ✦ 51

Above: In 1946 high school football 

was one of the most important forms 

of entertainment in Odessa. 





Below: The Permian High School 

football team won the state 

championship in 1965. 





the most victorious high school teams in the 

state. And while newspaper stories across the 

county brought Permian High School and 

Odessa nationwide prominence, a book written 

by a Philadelphia Inquirer sports writer made 

the Permian Panthers almost a household 

word across the United States. H. G. Bissinger 

penned Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and 

a Dream in 1990. A non-fiction book about the 

1988 Permian Panther football team Friday 

Night Lights painted a less than flattering picture 

of Odessa and Permian High School. While the 

book created quite a controversy in Odessa it 

did become a nationwide best seller and in 

2002 Sports Illustrated Magazine called it the 

“fourth greatest book ever written about 

sports”. In 2004, Friday Night Lights became a 

motion picture with an NBC television series by 

the same name premiering in October 2006. 

The series continued on television until it was 

pulled off the air in October 2010. Friday Night 

Lights leaves behind a questionable legacy, some 

true, some overblown that is likely to live on for 

years to come. 


C HAPTER 

T HREE 

ECTOR COUNTY OIL FIELDS 

AND COMMUNITIES 

In 1927 the Roxana Oil Company performed a torsion-balance instrument survey that indicated 

the presence of oil some three miles northeast of the Connell No. 1 well in southwest Ector County. 

Torsion-balance instruments measured the earth’s natural gravity field and oil companies used them 

in the Permian Basin to explore for oil during the 1920s and 1930s. As a result of the survey, Robert 

R. Penn leased six sections from the Texas and Pacific Land Trust with the intention of drilling a 

test well. In the summer of 1929, Pennsylvania-born driller W. A. Black started drilling operations 

and on October 27, at a depth of 3,700 feet oil gushed out of the Penn Kloh-Rumsey No. 1 spraying 

the black gold for some fifteen minutes over the top of the well. With this strike Ector County 

experienced its first oil boom. 

A photograph of Skelly-Amerada 

University No. 1 engulfed in flames 

was taken by photographer Jack 

Nolan the moment it burst 

into flames. 




Chapter Three ✦ 53

Below: In early West Texas 

boomtowns, people lived in all sorts of 

housing like this wood and canvas 

structure. This is W. J. Thomsons’ 

camp near Texas & Pacific Well 

No. 1 in Mitchell Country, Texas. 



Opposite, top: Late in the 1890s 

cowboys posed in front of a section 

house of The Texas & Pacific Railway 

in Metz, Texas, Ector County. Metz 

was one of the largest shipping points 

for cattle on the railroad to the Fort 

Worth Market. 



Opposite, center: Professor W. V. 

Harrison was Odessa public school 

superintendent from 1910 to 1914. 

Here he is seen on a picnic at Judkins 

place in Odessa in 1910. 



Within months, the new town of Penwell, 

located along the Texas and Pacific railroad and 

named for Robert Penn’s oil well, sprang up and 

initially grew at an astonishing rate as drilling 

crews and oil field workers rushed to the location. 

Land men needing the names of Ector County 

landowners in the vicinity of Penwell to obtain oil 

leases swamped the Ector County courthouse. 

Within six months of the strike twenty-three 

drilling rigs went into operation in the county 

and by the end of a year ninety-four wells 

produced 3,193,212 barrels of oil. Penwell grew 

very rapidly and within a year its population 

soared to an estimated 3,000 residents. Many of 

the first arrivals lived in tents as they awaited the 

construction of more permanent housing. 

P. B. Hart, a long time Penwell resident recalled 

that at the height of the boom, the bustling community 

had six lumber yards, a doctor’s office, a 

drug store, a barber shop, two hotels, numerous 

rooming houses, gas stations, several clothing 

stores, a school, a pool hall, a dance hall and for a 

time, a newspaper. In 1930, Penwell got a post 

office and regular mail routes to nearby camps 

began. A March 1930 Midland Reporter-Telegram 

article described the bustling boomtown and its 

almost carnival like atmosphere. 

“Penwell was now leaping and pulsing with 

constructive growth, playing a game of builder’s 

leapfrog from one block to another and leaving 

new rows of houses in its tracks. Cars on 

Main Street were parked in three rows, on either 

margin and in the center of the 100-foot 

avenue. Sunday, with the corps of workmen 

gathered in knots at every few feet, was just 

another day, and their hammering and sawing 

went on uninterrupted through out the day.” 

“Steady streams went into or came out of the 

town site office. Every class of humanity seemed 

jostled in the assembly. Despite the oiled streets, 

sand and dust blew with every breeze. Out 

towards the line of 27 derricks, tents of every 

size and color stuck absurdly out of the dried 

prairie grass and seemed to float in the sun 

flooded distance.” 

“They have their street hawkers there, noisily 

shouting their wares like the pie man of Simple 

Simon’s day. Vegetable carts and hamburger 

stands and popcorn venders and everything 

of the carnival atmosphere save the balloon 

seller and possible a monkey-cup hurdy-gurdy 

combination somewhere around if you can dust 

the sand out of your eyes long enough to take a 

sufficiently inquisitive peek.” 

Opposite, bottom: Miss Emma T. 

Hope taught the Judkins School class 

of 1907-1908. Miss Hope boarded 

with the G. B. Moss family in Metz, 

Texas. Mr. Moss was the section 

foreman for the Texas & Pacific 

Railway Company. 






Little has been written about the role of 

women in these early day boomtowns but they 

were present and not in small numbers. Many 

women came as wives and homemakers of male 

oil field workers raising their families despite very 

difficult living conditions. In 1920, Ector County 

had only 331 females shown on the census. Ten 

years later as the Penn field developed the population 

of women had increased five times. Women 

kept house, raised children, taught school, did 

office work, operated boarding houses, and 

cooked and waited tables in boomtown eating 

establishments. Many times the only housing 

available turned out to be a tent, a shack, a boxcar 

or a shotgun house. At least one family in the 

Permian Basin made their home in an unused oil 

tank with a door cut into the side. Tents provided 

immediate shelter and were inexpensive and 

readily available as military surplus from World 

War I. Tents also served as cafes and boarding 

establishments. Mrs. Fred Keene who lived in a 

tent in the oilfields recalled that she furnished her 

twenty by twenty-four foot canvas home with a 

two-burner oil stove, three beds, a dresser, table 

and chairs, a sewing machine and a Victrola 

record player. A luxury purchase, the Victrola 

provided a pleasant diversion from the harsh 

conditions of the oil fields playing the popular 

music of the time. According to Mrs. Keene “We 

were the only ones who had a Victrola. All of 

them [her neighbors] would gather at our place to 

hear the Victrola. And if any of them got a new 

record…they’d come over to our place to hear it.” 


Right: Moorhead No. 1 Cable Tool 

Rig drilled in 1929 on the Chapman- 

McAlvane Lease, Mentone, Texas. 

This was the last wooden oil derrick 

in the United States to retire from 

daily use. 





Below: A group of people is gathered 

around W. L. Foster Well No. 1 in 

1919. The well was eventually 

plugged and abandoned. Outmoded 

percussion methods used by 

inexperienced oil operators and 

second-hand cable tools and other 

equipment were blamed. 




Left: An early cable tool rig showing 

the bull wheels and rig irons that 

made deep drilling possible in its day. 


MUSEUM, PAUL O. SILL COLLECTION. 

Below: Bob Penn, far left, and his 

crew, pose in front of the famous Penn 

well. The well produced 600 to 700 

barrels a day. 






A wooden drilling rig of the Standard 

Potash Company. The image was 

taken in 1927 ten miles south of 

Odessa. Standing next to the rig, 

left to right, J. O. Eldridge, S. R. 

McKinney, and M. Agness. 


MUSEUM, CURTIS ROGERS COLLECTION, 

JACK NOLAN PHOTOGRAPHER. 

Ector County built a large community building 

in Penwell where local residents attended 

dances, suppers and meetings. Other recreational 

activities at Penwell included baseball, 

rodeos and dog racing. For a time three different 

churches; Baptist, Church of Christ and 

the Union Church held services in Penwell. Oil 

company camps such as the nearby Gulf 

Production Company camp also sprang up in 

the Penn field outside Penwell. These camps 

contained as many as forty or so well built 

wooden houses provided to attract married 

men with families to come to work in the oil 

field. Along the Bankhead Highway and the 

Texas & Pacific Railway tracks running from 

Monahans to Odessa (today’s Highway 80) land 

promoters laid out four other new towns 

including Judkins, Douro, Hilton, Badger, and 

Derrick City and began selling lots. 

Railroad stops in southwest Ector County 

included Judkins, Douro, Metz and Badger. At 

one time each location had the potential to 

develop into a new Ector County town but none 

ever did. They existed only briefly and sometimes 

came back to life briefly when oil strikes 

took place in the nearby oilfields. The Texas 

Railroad Commission required the Texas and 

Pacific to build section houses every ten miles 

along its tracks. These section houses became 

the first structures constructed in a number of 

these trackside rural communities. 

Twenty miles west of Odessa is the site of 

Judkins. Judkins came into existence as a station 

house on the Texas & Pacific Railway in the 

1880s. The place is named for an early 

landowner, Frank Judkins. By 1905 the village 

had a railroad depot, a post office, a general 

merchandise store, a cotton gin, a school and 

about a dozen houses. A general merchandise 

store operated by Tom and Steve Jones went 

into business and in 1910 the community got a 

post office. Unfortunately most of the water 

wells drilled in Judkins turned out to contain 

large amounts of “gyp” water. Gyp water is water 

that contains a high content of the mineral 

gypsum giving it a very foul taste. 

Judkins residents were forced to haul their 

drinking water from either Odessa or 

Monahans. The Monahans water was said to be 

of better quality. Two dozen or so German farming 

families from east Texas bought land around 

Judkins hoping to farm. The venture proved to 

be short lived. In 1910 a severe drought set in 

and within a few years most the farms failed. 

Judkins became a ghost town with the buildings 

finally being sold and moved away. R. N. 

Henderson bought a number of the houses and 

moved them to Odessa to serve as rent houses. 

In 1920 Judkins had a population of only fifteen 

residents. A few people remained in Judkins 

during the 1920s lured by jobs in the nearby oil 

fields. Some moved from Judkins to Penwell, 

four miles distant. The post office at Judkins 

operated until 1928. 


Although the section house at Douro located 

just west of Odessa never grew into an 

established town it did not escape the attention 

of a group of nineteenth century railroad land 

promoters who laid out a complete town site 

at Douro that included a courthouse, and 

residential lots. The only building in Douro was 

this section house and little else ever built. In 

1930, Douro had twenty-five residents and one 

business establishment but the community 

never grew beyond that. It is said Douro got its 

name from Mexican railroad workers who found 

the ground at the place to be especially hard 

or, in Spanish, duro. Legend has it that several 

Chinese railroad workers died while blasting the 

hard rock cut of the Caprock Escarpment west 

of Odessa and lie buried in the hard ground 

near the tracks. Not far up the tracks from 

Douro is Metz, another trackside village. The 

T&P built a section house at Metz but little else 

is known about the place. Apparently railroad 

workers gave the place its name because it 

reminded them of Metz, Germany. 

Between 1920 and 1930, the official population 

of Ector County grew from 760 residents to 

3,958 largely due to the discovery of oil in the 

Penn field. During this time, oil was also discovered 

some twenty-four miles northeast of the 

Penn field on the Cowden Ranch. In September 

1930 the Southern Crude Oil Purchasing 

Company struck oil using a cable tool rig in an 

area that became known as the North Cowden 

Field. The community of North Cowden, located 

seventeen miles northwest of Odessa in Ector 

County, sprang up as a supply center for the 

North Cowden field. The community got a post 

office in 1947. Five years later, in 1952, North 

Cowden had three businesses and in 1961 seven 

business establishments. By the late 1970s the 

post office closed and in 2,000 some eighty 

people lived in the vicinity. 

The surge in oil activity in the Penwell area 

however proved to be short-lived, quickly 

reversing itself as the Great Depression of the 

1930s set in. Oil field workers many times found 

themselves forced to leave the county, lured 

many times to East Texas by an ongoing oil 

boom there. Oil prices at the wellhead dropped 

to only ten cents a barrel in 1931 providing little 

incentive to drill new wells. Many workers who 

remained in the county found themselves unemployed. 

Throughout Ector County, merchants 

felt the pinch of a quickly slowing economy. In 

Odessa, the movie theater went out of business 

and the Citizens National Bank failed. The boom 

in Penwell quickly ended as people left the town 

and businesses closed. By 1933, less than 100 

residents remained in Penwell and the new 

towns with lots for sale along the Bankhead 

highway became ghost towns. Beef prices 

dropped and some ranchers decided not to sell 

their cattle since the grass was good in 1931 but 

the following year a drought set in bringing disaster 

to Ector County ranchers. 

Faced with large numbers of workers being 

unemployed, the City of Odessa applied to the 

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (R.F.C.) for 

assistance. The R.F.C. was a United States 

government agency started in 1932 during 

President Herbert Hoover’s administration for 

Below, left: Mules were a vital 

necessity in transporting supplies and 

equipment to inaccessible oil fields, 

c. 1929-1930. 





OF THE PETROLEUM MUSEUM, BETTY 


Below, right: Richard Thomas 

“Cotton” Waddell was a rancher, civic 

leader, banker, and oilman in Odessa. 

He is seen here, c. 1907-1910, as a 

young man in front of his ranch home 

in the Winkler County sandhills. He 

was Ector County commissioner from 

1924 to 1930, and mayor of Odessa 

from 1939 to 1943. 




Below: The No.3 Charley Judkins 

well, a mile-and-a-half north of 

Odessa, was one of the largest 

producers in the Permian Basin. 

In a six hour test, it flowed 550 

barrels hourly. 


MUSEUM, CURTIS ROGERS COLLECTION. 

Opposite, clockwise, starting from top: 

The Penn Kloh-Ramsey No.1 struck 

oil spectacularly in 1929. The nearby 

town of Penwell sprang up rapidly 

and within a year had an estimated 

population of 3,000. 





The #17 Danely Shell Well gushes oil 

in Ector County. George L. Wright is 

man standing by the car. 


MUSEUM, W. E. DANLEY COLLECTION. 

The crew and rig of the Broderick and 

Calvary No.1, the discovery well of 

Harper Field, are shown in 1933 on 

the Elliott F. Cowden ranch in Odessa. 

Left to right: unknown, unknown, 

Harry L, Smith, Fred King, unknown, 

John H. Black, Glenn Albert Black, 

Al Broderick, Joe Kelly, O. C. Harper, 

George Calvert, William A. Black, 

and Elliott Cowden. 




the purpose of aiding state and local 

governments. The R.F.C. however did little to 

help growing national unemployment until 

the administration of President Franklin D. 

Roosevelt increased funding in 1933. Odessa 

received R.F.C. money in 1933 and employed 

some workers on road projects making 

improvements to today’s Highway 80 then 

known as Highway One. By March 1935 Odessa 

defaulted on bonds and warrants totaling 

$35,906 due to declining city income. That year, 

delinquent city taxes totaled $39,925. With so 

many Odessans out of work, the Chamber of 

Commerce appealed in the Odessa News Times 

“to all citizens of Odessa to renounce all 

selfishness and self interest, and unite to provide 

any and all forms of employment which may 

tend to ameliorate this condition.” 

A glimmer of hope took place in September 

of 1932 when the Odessa News Times reported a 

wildcat well, the Parker No. 1, struck oil at 

4,192 feet, west of Odessa. But because of low 

oil prices, little new drilling took place. In the 

North Cowden Field only seven wells were 

drilled between 1931 and 1934. One reason 

that oil prices were so low was the flood of oil 

coming from the east Texas fields caused the 

market to fall dramatically. West Texas crude 

prices reached a turning point in the fall of 1933 

when oil rose to fifty cents per barrel and continued 

to increase slowly. In May of 1935 Ector 

County ranchers got a five inch rain and cattle 

prices rose from $12 a head to as much as $35 

per head paid by the U.S. government. By 1936, 

New Deal programs began to have more of an 

impact; the price of oil recovered somewhat and 

the development of the oil fields resumed. 

During these years, Ector County ranked seventh 

in the production of oil in west Texas. 

Rancher Cal Smith recalled that the real Ector 

County oil boom did not start until 1935 and 

continued until the 1950s. In the spring of 1933 

the Humble Oil Company built a new pipeline 

into the county but it was not until 1936 that 

Ector County oil production started to rise significantly. 

In 1929, W. F. Cowden sold seventeen sections 

of his ranch in northwest Ector County to 

J. O. Nobles and C. A. Goldsmith. Six years later 

the property showed great promise as a new oil 

field. During the summer of 1930 the Penn Oil 

Company partnered with the Devonian Oil 

Company and drilled a test well, the Goodman 

No. 1, on the property. Although the attempt 

showed the presence of oil at 4,398 feet, the well 

was abandoned. Four years later, in early 1934, 

C. J. Davidson and the Atlantic Refining 

Company drilled another well nine miles to the 

northwest that in the summer produced 30 barrels 

of and 8 million cubic feet of gas per day. In 

June 1935 the Gulf Oil Company drilled the 

Goldsmith No. 1 giving the new field its name 

and proving the potential of the filed by producing 

1,277 barrels of oil and 2 million cubic feet 

of natural gas per day. Within a year, the new 

Goldsmith field had 30 producing wells and 

within two years an astounding 357 wells. Gulf 

and Shell built pipelines into the Goldsmith field 

and by the winter of 1939 the field had 754 

producing oil wells with five gas wells. 



An image of early Goldsmith town site 

shows only a few houses and tents. 

In May 1937, it was platted as “Ector 

City”. The Postmaster General 

changed the name to Goldsmith to 

honor pioneer rancher and original 

landowner, Charles A. Goldsmith. 


MUSEUM, HARRY L. TUCKER COLLECTION. 

The community of Goldsmith formally came 

into existence in 1936 about the time Imogene 

Bunn petitioned for a post office and a town 

charter under the name Ector City. Since Texas 

already had two communities named Ector, one 

in Fannin County and another in Harrison 

County, the name Ector City did not receive 

approval by the U. S. Postal Service. As a result, 

the community submitted the name Goldsmith, 

for local rancher C. A. Goldsmith who owned 

the land of the proposed town. C. C. Tucker 

laid out the town site dividing it into single lots. 

Within a year of the nearby oil discovery, 

Goldsmith grew rapidly. At one early point 

during the boom, Goldsmith is said to have 

6,000 residents. While there were plenty of 

jobs, housing was almost unavailable forcing 

many oil field workers forced to drive from 

Odessa to work each day. Many of the first 

Goldsmith inhabitants lived in tents and the 

drilling rigs and tanks of the nearby booming 

oil field could be seen in almost every direction. 

By 1937 the community had a post office, a 

grocery store, several barrooms and eating 

places and a rooming house that provided the 

only indoor bathroom in town. Patrons paid 

twenty-five cents to take a shower in the 

rooming house. The boomtown grew to contain 

numerous barrooms, eating places, a drug 

store, three hotels and two movie theaters. That 

same year an elementary school opened and the 

Baptists, Methodists and Church of Christ built 

churches in the community. A Dr. Potts 

operated a medical clinic and hospital in 

Goldsmith. Also in 1937 the Phillips Petroleum 

Company built a casing head gasoline plant 

about a mile northwest of Goldsmith capable of 

producing 75,000 gallons of gasoline per day. 

During construction of the $1.75 million dollar 

plant some 400 workers found employment. 

The town had no electricity until 1938 

forcing its populace to resort to kerosene lamps 

for lighting. The 1940 U.S. Census showed 

Goldsmith as officially having 850 people and 

forty business establishments. In that year, 

Goldsmith voted 92 to 66 to incorporate the 

town. Like other Ector County oil boom towns 

Goldsmith experienced a rapid influx of oilfield 

workers during its discovery and boom years 

with extremely high population estimates that 

began to decline as the wells were completed, 

drilling dropped off and the workers moved on 

to the next boom. The Goldsmith oil field had 

30 producing wells in 1936. A year later the 

number grew to 357 wells with another 39 in 

the process of being drilled. These wells 

produced an average 11,477 barrels of oil daily. 

By 1942 the Goldsmith Field had grown to 958 

wells with 911 flowing oil. Gulf and Shell had 

constructed pipelines into the field. 

In October 1943 a test well revealed yet 

another greatly important oil field in Ector 

County, the TXL Field. The field got its name 

from the Texas & Pacific Land Trust and TXL 


Above: Odessa railroad scene during 

a boom in the early 1950s. 





Left: Men are laying an eighteen-inch 

pipeline between Kemper and Ector 

Stations of Humble Oil Pipe Line 

Company in 1956. 






was the symbol on the New York Stock 

Exchange to identify the railroad’s stock. The 

TXL Field is located in northwest Ector County 

about five miles west of the Goldsmith Field. 

Shell Oil Company drilled the test well on a 

lease owned by Cities Service Oil Company just 

west of the community of Notrees in October 

1943. Oil was found present between 7,886 and 

8,020 feet and the well produced some 1,911 

barrels of oil per day. Wells were expensive to 

drill in the TXL field some costing about $9 per 

foot to 7,000 feet. The field is however remarkable 

because of its production. By 1959 of sixty 

wildcat wells drilled in the TXL Field seventeen 

turned out to be producing oil wells. 

It is said the community of Notrees had only 

a single tree and it had to be cut down during 

the construction of a large Shell gas plant. 

Notrees is an unincorporated community 

located twenty-one miles northwest of Odessa 

on State Highway 302. Postmaster Charlie 

Brown is credited with giving the place its 

name. Brown operated a grocery store in 

Notrees. Notrees became the center of the TXL 

oil field. At one point the town had ten oil 

company camps and a population in excess of 

500. The community had a school, a recreation 

hall, a liquor store, two grocery stores and 

various other businesses. During the 1950s and 

1960s Notrees businesses thrived. The 1966 

population reached 338 residents. When the 

oil camps started closing about this time, many 

oil field workers moved away. Today current 

residents of Notrees pride themselves in 

planting trees in their community. 

Ector County oil fields produced 19,515,540 

barrels of oil from 14,000 wells in 1940, the 

fourth largest amount in the state. By 1946 the 

number of producing oil wells in the county 

enlarged to 17,951. During World War II, the 

economy of the county evolved from being 

largely based on ranching into one driven by 

the oil fields and related support and 

manufacturing services. Odessa, surrounded by 

oilfields, grew from being a dusty cowtown into 

the specialized manufacturing center of the 

Permian Basin. From 1927 to the late 1990s, 

Ector County oil fields produced upwards of 

two billion barrels of oil. 

As Ector County approaches the second 

decade of the twenty-first century, the oil 

industry continues to thrive. More than three 

billion barrels of oil have been produced in 

Ector County since the Penn Kloh-Rumsey No. 1 

gushed its black gold over the rig eighty-three 

years ago. In 2008, Ector County wells produced 

17,304,762 barrels of oil and 8,512,595 million 

cubic feet of natural gas. In February 2009, Ector 

County ranked second in the state for oil 

production with 5,854 producing oil wells. In 

October 2010, an estimated 261 drilling rigs 

were in operation in Texas with 21 of these rigs 

located inside Ector County. One hundred and 

six years have now passed since Kelly Hogg 

predicted the little cowtown of Odessa would 

someday grow into a great city and it certainly 

has with almost 132,000 people now calling 

Ector County home. 

Opposite, top: This image of several 

rigs lit at night was a familiar scene 

in West Texas, 1945. 


MUSEUM, SOUTHWEST COLLECTION, 

TTU COLLECTION. 

Opposite, bottom: Two drilling rigs 

are being manufactured by Oil 

Industry Enterprises east of Odessa 

in 1979. 


MUSEUM, TEXACO INC. COLLECTION. 

Above: The Petroleum Museum 

Library & Hall of Fame is located 

on Interstate 20 West. 





BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Special thanks to Dr. Terry Shults, Head of Technical 

Services, Dunagan Library, University of Texas Permian Basin; 

Leslie Meyer, Archives/Collections Director at the Permian 

Basin Petroleum Museum and Doris Baker, Southwest History 

& Genealogy Department at the Ector County Library for their 

research assistance. 

Barrett, Velma and Hazel Oliver. Odessa: City of Dreams. San Antonio. 

Naylor Co., San Antonio, 1952. 

Box, Geraldine T. “Road Rivalry Between Midland and Odessa 

in the 1930s”. The Permian Historical Annual, Vol. XXII, 

December, 1982. 

Clemens, Gus. Legacy: The Story of the Permian Basin Region of 

West Texas and Southeast New Mexico. San Antonio: Mulberry 

Avenue Books, 1983. 

Deaton, Charles. Texas Postal History Handbook. Houston, 1981. 

Dobie, J. Frank. Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver. Boston: Little, Brown, 

and Company, 1939. 

Dolman, Wilson Elbert III. “Odessa, Texas, During the Depression.” 

Unpublished Master’s Thesis, University of Texas, 1950. 

Faulk, Odie B. ed. “A Description of the Comanche Indians in 

1786 by the Governor of Texas”. West Texas Historical Association 

Yearbook, 1961. 

Fehrenbach, T. R. Comanches: The Destruction of a People. New York: 

McMillian Publishing Company, Inc., 1968. 

Holden, W. C. “Blue Mountain Rock Shelter.” Bulletin of the Texas 

Archaeological and Paleontological Society, 1938. Abilene: Texas 

Archaeological and Paleontological Society, 1938. 

Horton, Finas Wade. “A History of Ector County, Texas.” 

Unpublished Master’s Thesis, University of Texas, 1950. 

Hubbs, Barney. “Taped interview to Glenn Justice August 23, 1991”. 

Hunter, J. Marvin. The Trail Drivers of Texas. Austin: University of 

Texas Press, 1985. 

Justice, Glenn. Odessa: An Illustrated History. Chatsworth: Winsor 

Publications, 1991. 

McNeel, J. S., Jr., ed. Odessa, Texas USA: Diamond Jubilee 

1886-1961. Permian Historical Society, 1961. 

Massengil, Fred I. Texas Towns: Origin of Name and Location of 

Each of the 2,148 Post Offices in Texas. Terrell, 1936. 

Myers, Samuel D. The Permian Basin Petroleum Empire of the 

Southwest: Era of Discovery From the Beginning to the Depression. 

El Paso: Permian Press, 1973. 

__________. The Permian Basin, Petroleum Empire of the Southwest: 

Era of Advancement, From the Depression to the Present. El Paso: 

Permian Press, 1977. 

Newcomb, W. W. Jr., The Indians of Texas: From Prehistoric to Modern 

Times. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961. 

Newcomb, W. W. Jr., and Kirkland, Forrest. The Rock Art of Texas 

Indians. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. 

Odessa Fact Book, Odessa, Texas. Odessa Chamber of 

Commerce, 1979. 

Orbeck, James and Betty. “Showdown at Odessa-1906, the White 

Ribboners vs. the Open Saloon.” Permian Historical Annual Vol. III, 

December 1963 No. 1. 

Olien, Diana Davids. “Keeping House in a Tent: Women in the 

Early Permian Basin Oil Fields” The Permian Historical Annual, 

Vol. XXII, December, 1982. 

Olien, Roger M., and Diana Davids. Oil Booms: Social Change in 

Five Texas Towns. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. 

Paulette, Irene. “Odessa During the War Years, 1941-1945: 

A Microcosm of the Nation.” Permian Historical Annual. 

Permian Historical Society, 1982. 

Price, Margret Ann. “From Rails to Rigs: The Early History of 

Ector County, Texas, 1881-1927.” Unpublished Master’s 

Thesis, University of Texas Permian Basin, n.d. 

Pliska, Mary Beth. A Blacksmith’s Aeroplane. Midland, 1965. 

Pope, Clarence. An Oil Scout in the Permian Basin, 1924-1960. 

El Paso: Permian Press, 1972. 

Rister, Carl C. Oil! Titan of the Southwest. Norman: University of 

Oklahoma Press, 1949. 

Rutherford, Bill. Ector County’s Oldest Commercial Building 

204 North Grant: 1890 to 1981. Odessa, Ector County 

Historical Commission, 1981. 

Rundell, Walter. Oil in West Texas and New Mexico: A Pictorial 

History of the Permian Basin. College Station: Texas A & M 

University Press, 1982. 

__________. “Texas Petroleum History: A Selective Annotated 

Bibliography.” Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Austin: Texas 

State Historical Association, October 1963 

Sheppard, John Ben. Odessa 100: An Informal History. Odessa: 

Exchange Club, 1981. 

Tarpley, Fred. 1001 Texas Place Names. Austin: University of Texas 

Press, 1980. 

Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide. Dallas: A. H. Belo 

Corporation, various years. 

Texas State Historical Association. The New Handbook of Texas. 

Vol. 1-6. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1996. 

The New Southwest, The New County of Ector, The new Town of 

Odessa. Odessa: Latham Publishing, 1974. 

Tillapaugh, J. “The Texas & Pacific On The Llano Estacado, 1881.” 

Permian Historical Annual, Permian Historical Society, 1981. 

Wallace, Earnest and E. Adamson Hoebel. The Comanches: Lords of 

the South Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952. 

White, Lila B. Henderson Drug Co. Building. Odessa, n.d. 


INDEX 

Amburgey, J. J. 15 

Barrett, Velma 42 

Badger, Texas 58 

Bibbins, A. B. 31 

Big Spring Herald 39 

Black, W. A. 53, 60 

Blue Mountain 5, 6 

Box, Lila 42 

Brockett, Odessa 9 

Bryan, Mrs. E. R. 24 

Buchanan, M. G. 22, 24 

Bush, George Herbert Walker 46, 51 

Cactus Broadcasting Network 43 

Coggin, Gray 29 

Comanche Indians 5 

Commissioner’s Court of Ector County 24 

Connell No. 1 35, 53 

Connell, W. E. 33 

Cook, Captain Jim 5, 7 

Cosden, Josuha 33, 35 

Cosden Oil and Gas Company 33 

Cowden Ranch 59, 60 

Daugtery, M. A. 12, 21 

Dawson, Elias F. 10, 27 

Dawson, John Gilbert 10 

Dawson, Martha 12 

Dawson Saloon 10, 12 

Dawson, Samuel Toliver 10, 12, 13 

Dawson, Silas R. 10 

Denney, Laura Louisa 14 

Derrick City, Texas 58 

Douro, Texas 58, 59 

Dunn, Horace J. 29 

Ector’s Brigade 9 

Ector City, Texas 62 

Ector County Democrat 33, 35 

Ector County News 35 

Ector County Land Rush 27 

Ector, Matthew Duncan 9 

Elliot, George 37 

Files, Frank P. 37, 38 

Frame, Jesse 24, 27 

Frame, Paul 27 

Francis, A. C. 37 

Gassaway, V. D. 25, 30 

Great Rabbit Roping Wrangle 40 

Gibbons, F. E. 21 

Glassock, Kenneth 5 

Goldsmith, C. A. 61, 62 

Goldsmith, Texas 62 

Guadalupe Mountains 14, 17 

Hartzell, H. O. 31 

Harris, Mrs. Tom 35 

Hammett, James 29 

Hammett, Hugh L. 29 

Herkimer, Mrs. J. R. 12 

Hendricks, Grace 40, 41 

Henderson, John Julius 13, 21 

Henderson Drug Store 21 

Hilburn Brothers Saloon 13 

Hilburn, Seaborn Webb 13 

Hilton, Texas 58 

Hogg, James L. 9 

Hogg, Kelley 27, 65 

Hogan, J. W. 37 

Hubbs, Barney 35, 37, 38, 42 

Jones, Tom 37, 59 

Judkins, Frank 59 

Judkins, Texas 33, 59 

Keene, Mrs. Fred 55 

Lewis, Charlie 27 

McGonagile, George M. 12, 13 

McKinney, S. R. 31, 58 

Midland Minnie 5 

Metz, Texas 54, 59, 60 

Molly and John Saloon 13 

Moody, Rush 38 

Monahans Draw 5, 8 

Mudgett, Mrs. W. P. 12 

Notrees, Texas 65 

Lost Sublett Mine 14 

Noel, W. D. 47 

North Cowden Field 59, 60 

Odessa Chuck Wagon Gang 44 

Odessa, City of 44, 59 

Odessa Chamber of Commerce 35 

Odessa Commercial Club 31, 32 

Odessa Flying School 44 

Odessa Herald 35 

Odessa Land and Town Site Company 9 

Odessa Meteor Crater 5 

Odessa American 38, 44 

Odessa News 35, 37, 39 

Odessa News Times 5, 24, 30, 31, 36, 40, 60 

Odessa Weekly 35 

O. H. S. Yellow Jackets 33, 51 

Old Buffalo Wallow 6 

Penwell, Texas 54, 58, 59, 50 

Permian Basin 31, 36, 42, 43, 

44, 46, 48, 53, 55, 65 

Permian Basin Oil Show 46 

Permian Sea 4 

Penn, Robert R. 53, 54, 57 

Pliska, John 2, 28, 29 

Pool, Osa 19 

Quito Wells Stone Quarry 21 

Rabb, Thomas G. 29 

Rathburn, Inez 21 

Ratten, A. S. 21 

Ratten, Mary 21 

Rodman, E. G. 47 

Reeves County Record 37 

Pecos Gusher 35 

Pecos Times 37 

Texas Bankers Association 36, 37 

Texas Banker’s Record 36 

Thomas, William 21 

Santa Rita No. 1 31 

Shuffler, Ralph 39 

Sublett, William Caldwell 14 

Texas & Pacific Railway 14, 20, 54, 59 

Watson, Elmer 32 

Whipkey, Abe 39 

White, Charles 17, 18, 23 

White, Lucy 17, 18, 19 

Wilson, R. A. 21 

Webb, John E. 29 

Webb, Henry 35, 41 

Webb, Reeder 35, 36, 37, 41 

Webb, Ruby 35 

Wells Point 8, 9 

White Ribboners 12, 13 

Women’s Christian Temperance Union 12 

Wyche, William Lawrence 29 

Index ✦ 67

The Parker House Ranching Museum, 1996. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE PARKER HOUSE MUSEUM, ODESSA, TEXAS. 

68 ✦ ECTOR COUNTY, TEXAS: 125 Years of History

SHARING THE HERITAGE 

Historic profiles of businesses,organizations, 

and families that have contributed to the development 

and economic base of Ector County 

The Marketplace.............................................................................71 

Quality of Life..............................................................................101 

Building a Greater Ector County .....................................................127 

SHARING THE HERITAGE ✦ 69

This was the scene in Odessa on 

Grant Street in 1935, when Sewell 

Ford received twenty-two new cars for 

its grand opening. 





THE MARKETPLACE 

Ector County’s retail and 

commercial establishments offer 

an impressive variety of choices 


Sewell Ford Lincoln . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 

Insignia Hospitality Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 

Prime Time Christian Broadcasting, Inc. 

God’s Learning Channel, GLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 

The Barn Door Steakhouse and Pecos Depot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 

Freedom Pontiac Buick, GMC Trucks, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 

Manuel’s Odessa Tortilla & Tamale Factory, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 

Commercial Ice Machine Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 

Complex Community Federal Credit Union. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 

Liz’s Linens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 

Joe Allbright Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 

K-B Safe & Lock Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 

The Garriga Law Firm, PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 

La Margarita Mexican Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 

Industrial Communications, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 

Western National Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 

Odessa Spring, Brake & Axle, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 

Oberkampf Supply, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 

Hill’s Carpet Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 

Furniture Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 

THE MARKETPLACE ✦ 71

SEWELL 

FORD LINCOLN 

Above: Sewell Motor Company at its 

original location on Second Street and 

Texas Avenue. 

Below: A view of the Texas Avenue 

location from atop the Ector 

County Courthouse. 

Opposite, top: The Sewell Family is 

presented the Golden Shovel Award by 

Ford Motor Company for the new 

facility built on Eighth Street in 1969. 

From left, Ron Sewell, Charlie 

Sodequist, Canda Sewell, Woody 

Sewell, Wilma Sewell, Wendell 

Coleman, Louise Sewell and 

Carl Sewell, Sr. 

Opposite, bottom: A promotion at the 

new facility featured a Ford Mustang 

suspended directly over Eighth Street. 

With more than a century of experience 

in the car business, the Sewell Family of 

Companies is dedicated to creating an environment 

where people love to work and do business. 

With a reputation of caring for people 

and serving the community, Sewell Ford is a 

landmark in the history of Ector County and a 

key contributor to its future. 

In 1911, E. F. Sewell was a hardware store 

owner and a lay Baptist preacher in Arlington, 

Texas. At the request of his customers, Sewell 

became one of the first people in Texas to offer 

the new Ford Model T. First time buyers often 

arrived by horseback or horse and buggy. 

Model T’s were delivered in a crate box and 

E. F. assembled those vehicles for his customers 

and gave his new clients driving lessons. 

The Sewell tradition continued as sons 

Woody, Carl, and Ed purchased the Ford 

dealership in Odessa in 1935. “At that time, 

my granddad had a grocery store in Crane,” 

relates Woody’s son and third generation 

dealer Ron Sewell. “Dad and Uncle Carl 

stopped by and said ‘we’ve just bought the Ford 

dealership in Odessa and wanted to let you 

know we’ll be moving there.’ Granddad said 

‘you boys are getting too big for your britches. 

If you want to put in a Ford dealership, you 

need to do it in Penwell because Odessa will 

never make it.’” 

Despite E. F.’s apprehension, success came 

quickly for the brothers as they sold out of 

their entire inventory in the first weekend. 

“Dad said they had seven used vehicles and 

three new and between ten o’clock 

and midnight when the bars 

started closing they had customers 

so they didn’t close. The next 

thing they knew it was Saturday 

and they had sold everything they 

had.” Soon after, when twenty-two 

Ford vehicles arrived from Dallas, 

eleven of them were sold that 

day when they were paraded the 

down Grant Street and parked 

them in front of their dealership 

on Texas Boulevard. 



Above: Woody Sewell works at 

his desk. 

Right: Paul Crump, Jack Henry, 

Wilma Sewell, and Ron Sewell are 

joined by Odessa Chamber of 

Commerce members at the ribbon 

cutting for the new West County Road 

location, Sewell Ford West in 1987. 


Cars started at $695 and as prices increased, 

Woody stated that he could not look a man 

in the eye the first time he had to ask $1,000 for 

a vehicle. 

During the oil boom Sewell Ford was open 

twenty-four hours a day. “Dad said he could 

remember the first Christmas. When they 

were ready to close for the holiday, no one 

could find a key to the dealership so they 

just got plywood and nailed it across the 

three doors they had.” 

With the onset of World War II the Sewell’s 

success, like most of America, came to a 

skidding halt. Automotive makers stopped 

manufacturing cars until 1946, so the 

dealership survived through service. “All the 

new vehicle manufacturing had been shifted to 

building airplanes and tanks to send to 

Europe,” states fourth-generation dealer and 

current company president Collin Sewell. “My 

grandfather knew he had to do what he could 

to stay in business.” 

Woody’s son Ron joined the dealership 

in 1967 just one year after the dealership 

moved to its current location on east Eighth 

Street. In 1972, Ron became manager. Paul 

Crump joined the dealership in 1974 as a 

business partner and became a part of that 

leadership team. “The confidence I had in 

Woody and Ron led me to believe this was the 

right choice,” states Crump. “About five years 

into this, I realized we weren’t just selling cars 

and trucks but we were helping people.” 

Today, caring about people is the hallmark of 

Sewell and leadership serves as the gateway 

for people to grow and extraordinary things 

to take place. “The world normally sees a 

leader as someone who is in charge of or 

‘the boss’ over a lot of people,” states Collin. 

“What we’ve done in our company is taken 

that belief and flipped it on its head. We’ve 

said, ‘if you want to be a leader, you better be 

prepared to serve people.’ As people move up 

in our company, they not only assume more 

responsibility for the business and its results, 

but also for the people they lead and each one’s 

individual success.” 

What does the next one hundrd years hold? 

“Where we go tomorrow will largely be 

determined by the foundation we are laying 

today. We will be a company that builds a 

generation of leaders. We will serve our 

customers so they become fans. We will be 

the gold standard for business. We will 

remain a company founded on Faith, 

strengthened by our character, and focused on 

multiplying value in the marketplace and 

around the globe.” 

Left to right, Non-Profit Management 

Center Executive Director, Mark 

Palmer presents Collin Sewell and 

Paul Crump the 2010 Award for 

the Permian Basin’s Most 

Philanthropic Business. 


INSIGNIA 

HOSPITALITY 

GROUP 

Insignia Hospitality Group, Inc. is a 

family owned hotel development and 

management company operating ten 

hotels under flagship names that include 

Intercontinental Hotels Group, Hilton 

Hotels Worldwide, and Marriott Hotels. 

The company prides itself on its ability 

to be adaptable in a fluctuating and 

complex environment while being 

recognized by its franchisors, investors 

and peers as being operationally savvy. 

The company has been honored to 

develop a team of leaders not only within 

its company, but in the community as well. 

Insignia’s heartbeat is its well trained personnel 

at its individual properties. They are well-trained 

and empowered to make difficult management 

decisions without hesitation, while having 

infinite corporate support if needed. 

Insignia’s mission is to drive to be the 

epitome in the lodging industry by having all 

associates committed to service excellence in a 

unique, friendly atmosphere and providing 

value-added services to all stakeholders. The 

vision is to become an organization providing 

value-added service excellence by promoting a 

creative, challenging work environment. 

Established in 2003 by brothers Darpan 

Bhakta and Ankur Bhakta, Insignia Hospitality 

Group offers a successful hotel management 

firm that include hotels in difficult hotel 

markets around the country. The company 

takes prides in its effectiveness at redirecting an 

underperforming hotel’s operations and making 

the group successful financially and through 

the eyes of the individual franchisor. 

Insignia Hospitality Group has two distinct 

departments within the company, one dedicated 

to hotel construction and development needs and 

the other to a hotel management operational 

department, a complex and integral part of the 

company that provides all the consulting needs to 

the company about successful hotel operations. 

This department also oversees all operations of 

all the company’s portfolio of hotels. Both of 

these departments work hand in hand to ensure 

a successful new hotel opening. 

Insignia Hospitality Group has a broad base 

knowledge of hotel operations and sales. 

Knowledgeable of developing leaders in the 

hospitality field and the development of hotels, 

the company also provides expertise in ramping 

up newly opened hotels, feasibility of potential 

new hotel markets, and having 

successful low turnover within 

management positions in the company. 

Insignia Hospitality Group represents 

three different franchises and four 

different properties in Odessa, all nestled 

in the northern Retail side of Odessa, 

away from the Industrial Hwy 80/ 

Business 20 railroad track district. 

This gives the ability to fulfill a client’s 

desire to be provided with the finest 

in “one stop shopping” for all four 

hotels which include the Hilton’s 

Hampton Inn and Suites, the Marriott’s Fairfield 

Inn and Suites, and the Intercontinental Hotel 

Group’s Odessa Holiday Inn and Holiday 

Inn Express. The company also owns and 

operates properties in Hobbs, New Mexico, 

and in Texas in Midland, San Angelo, Sulphur 

Springs, and Katy. 

All of the local properties are either new construction 

or recently renovated to offer guests 

the finest in luxury guest accommodations 

and all Odessa properties are located with 


convenient access to Odessa’s Mall, 

the finest eating establishments, retail 

shopping and movie theaters. All of the 

properties also offer in room refrigerators, 

microwaves, flat screen 32 inch 

televisions, and wireless internet service 

as well as luxury linens, pulsating 

shower heads and fine bedding with 

an assortment of personal pillow type 

choices to insure a restful night’s sleep. 

While the Hampton Inn & Suites, 

Fairfield Inn & Suites and the Holiday 

Inn Express all offer complimentary 

breakfast and outdoor pool, the Odessa 

Holiday Inn also offers the benefits of 

the full service Heritage Restaurant 

and Lounge with room service, should 

guest(s) desire. 

Insignia Hospitality Group provides 

the frequent stay guest award programs 

of Hilton, Marriott and Priority Club 

to offer guests added benefits and 

privileges on a personal level. Corporate 

Meeting Space is also available at each 

property for training/meeting events and 

the properties can accommodate from 10 to 150 

attendees with a full line of AV equipment and 

catering should needs dictate. 

Insignia Hospitality Group prefers to offer 

the highest quality guest rooms and elegant 

meeting and dining facilities on an occasional, 

weekly or monthly basis offering consistence 

and quality at every encounter. Insignia 

Hospitality Group feels that by offering a very 

competitive rate, adding unique amenities, and 

providing top of the line service unmatched in 

this area, it can partner for success with all of its 

clients for all hospitality needs. 

Whether guests are taking a vacation escape, 

or taking care of business, Insignia’s four 

Odessa locations include: 

• The Hampton Inn & Suites, at 3923 John 

Ben Sheppard (JBS) Parkway, online at 

www.hamptoninn.com, and by phone at 

432-363-2900. 

• Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott at 3933 

JBS Parkway, online at www.marriott.com, 

and by phone at 432-363-1900. 

• Holiday Inn at 5275 East 42nd Street, online 

at www.holidayinn.com and by phone at 

432-366-5900. 

• Holiday Inn Express & Suites at 5321 JBS 

Parkway, online at www.hiexpress.com, and 

by phone at 432-362-6800. 

The Hampton Inn & Suites includes a fitness 

room, jogging and walking tracks, and an 

outdoor pool. Business guests will also 

appreciate the audio/visual equipment rental 

choices, a modern business center and 

phone service, a complimentary printing 

service, fax, comfortable meeting rooms, 

modem, and printer. Personal touches include 

complimentary beverage and breakfast areas, 

coin laundry, elevators, laundry/valet service, 

luggage hold, multi-lingual staff, and a safety 

deposit box. 


Located across the street from the University 

of Texas Permian Basin (UTPB) and only 

minutes from Midland International Airport, the 

Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott offers and 

outdoor swimming pool and spacious guest 

rooms and suites with a well-lit work desk, two 

phones and data ports with free high speed 

internet throughout the hotel, free cable TV 

with HBO, in-room hair dryer, iron and ironing 

board, a mini-fridge and microwave in every 

room, and a free continental breakfast. 

Among the newest full-service hotels in the 

area is Odessa’s Holiday Inn. The hotel is 

conveniently located near the city’s businesses 

and attractions, and is also across the street from 

UTPB. The hotel offers a complimentary shuttle 

service to Midland International Airport and 

to a variety of destinations located within a 

five-mile radius. The hotel provides a sparkling, 

outdoor pool, spa and a well-equipped, 24-hour 

fitness center, and the in-house Heritage 

Restaurant and Lounge, offering a full menu of 

West Texas favorites. 

Awarded for its outstanding commitment 

to quality and customer service, Holiday 

Inn Express and Suites offers a variety of 

complimentary amenities and an outstanding 

location, which benefits travelers visiting nearby 

business partners. Business amenities include 

a 1,440-square-foot meeting room and free, 

24-hour business center. The hotel also includes 

free high-speed, wired and wireless Internet 

access, daily newspapers, the Express Start hot 

breakfast bar, a free 24-hour fitness center and 

jacuzzi. The hotel’s 24-hour convenience store 

sells sundry items and snacks, and the lobby’s 

52” interactive Smart Board offers up-to-theminute 

headline news and interactive maps to 

local restaurants and attractions. 

Insignia Hospitality Group, Inc. welcomes 

guests from the around the world to each of its 

fine Odessa destinations. 



PRIME TIME 

CHRISTIAN 

BROADCASTING, 

INC., 

GOD’S 

LEARNING 

CHANNEL, GLC 

Top: GLC Bookstore and Coffee Shop 

is located at 12706 West Highway 80 

East and is open Monday through 

Saturday. For more information, 

please call 866-846-5200. 

Above: The Coopers at the Update 

News Desk. 

Right: God’s Learning Channel is 

available on Galaxy 19 Free-to-Air 

Direct Broadcast Satellite network, 

with no subscription fees. 

Prime Time Christian Broadcasting, Inc., is a 

nonprofit, 501-c3 organization known as God’s 

Learning Channel (GLC). GLC is a Christian 

television ministry broadcast by satellite from 

Odessa around the world with twenty-four 

hour Christian programming. Light of the 

Southwest, the flagship program and the Update 

News are both hosted by Al and Tommie 

Cooper, and their son, Jeff Cooper. 

Light of the Southwest features interviews 

with various ministers, teachers, 

authors and musicians. The Update 

News program has an emphasis on 

news subjects with an angle not 

heard over the mainstream media news 

programs. GLC also features teaching 

programs, most are produced in-house by 

well-versed teachers. Some are Biblical 

scholars, professors, but all share a love 

for the Lord and a willingness to help 

spread the Truth. GLC also has programs 

in Spanish, Farsi and Chinese. And of 

course, some children’s programming. 

The vision for GLC first began in 1975 

when Al Cooper resigned from the 

corporate staff of GTE/Lenkurt in the 

California Bay Area to start his own 

motor home business in Roswell, New 

Mexico. In June of 1982, upon learning 

that the local Christian station was to 

replace Christian programming with 

family entertainment, Tommie told Al 

“I miss Christian television. You have to 

do something!” As she knew full well that 

he was indeed capable! 

Al agreed with Tommie and in September of 

1982 approached the local cable system with 

the idea of allowing the couple to provide 

Christian programming via satellite from the 

Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). By the end 

of that year, the Coopers received a nonprofit 

certificate and began feeding the TBN 

programming to the local cable system. 


Programming continued for nearly ninety 

days, when it became obvious to Al that if 

GLC was going to provide teaching programs 

it would need to be a licensed FCC television 

station, so Al proceeded to engineer KRPV-27/ 

Roswell, which is still broadcasting today. 

As the demand for Christian programming 

increased, the Coopers soon found the need to 

relocate from Roswell, New Mexico, to Odessa, 

Texas. The equipment at KRPV could not reach 

Texas, so GLC acquired an FCC license for 

KMLM-42, Odessa in 1991. The equipment 

purchased in Gardendale would feed the 

Roswell station and reach the other outlying 

areas. The KMLM-42 studio and offices were 

originally located in Gardendale. The 30X40 

foot concrete building on the transmitter site 

had one office which doubled as a prayer line 

room, a master control room for all the necessary 

broadcasting equipment, one bathroom, a 

storage area for the engineers, not to mention 

the very small area (12X12) used for a studio! 

In December 1993, GLC purchased the old 

Sunoco building in Odessa. The building had 

all the features needed for a growing network. 

Turning an oilfield office into a working studio 

and supporting offices began and the first 

live broadcast was debuted on January 31, 1994, 

at 6 pm. 

GLC continued to grow in their coverage area 

as they built KPBT-16 in Lubbock in 1996, 

followed by KPCB-17 in Snyder in 1997, and 

KPTF-18 in Farwell in 2001. 

In 2005 work began on a large metal storage 

building on the Odessa property. The building 

was transformed into an on-campus bookstore 

and coffee shop, open to the public. The 

bookstore carries a wide variety of unique gifts 

and educational materials to help the viewer 

understand the station’s own teaching programs, 

many diverse publications and music. Programs 

produced at GLC are also available for purchase 

through the bookstore. 

As GLC grew over the cable systems they 

began using satellite technology to reach across 

West Texas and New Mexico, which expanded 

coverage across the United States, into Europe, 

the Middle East and now with their fifth satellite 

they are also reaching the Far East. The fine 

Christian programming of GLC can be found on 

five full power stations in Roswell, New Mexico, 

Snyder, Lubbock, Farwell and Odessa, Texas, by 

Direct-to-Home satellite, or on the web at 

www.glc.us.com. 

GLC’s mission remains the same today as 

when the Coopers wanted to provide Christian 

programming to their own community. Now 

they are reaching well past any dream they ever 

imagined. This dream has evolved to educate 

the viewer about their Biblical roots, to enhance 

their understanding of ‘who’ Jesus was and is, to 

educate the viewer about Israel, where Jesus 

lived, died and was resurrected. GLC searches 

out these truths with many diverse teaching 

programs revealing what the Bible teaches, what 

Jesus taught, what his teachings meant in the 

context he taught them, and the impact it has on 

our world today. GLC has become a strong voice 

teaching the world Biblical truth. These truths 

are found in the Bible, proclaiming one true 

God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 

Al and Tommie Cooper, founders of 

Prime Time Christian Broadcasting/ 

GLC on the Light of the 

Southwest set. 


THE BARN DOOR 

STEAKHOUSE 

AND 

PECOS DEPOT 

Built as the premier restaurant for Odessa 

and its surrounding communities, Jay Beeson 

opened Jay’s Barn Door in 1963. Known today 

as The Barn Door Steakhouse and Pecos Depot, 

it remains one of the community’s main 

attractions and a West Texas icon. 

In 1973 the historic Pecos Train Depot and its 

memorabilia were purchased for $5,000 and 

brought by truck to be placed adjacent and 

attached to The Barn Door Steakhouse. The Pecos 

Depot, a real old time train depot from Pecos, 

Texas, along with its Executive Room, which was 

originally used for the depot’s more discerning 

upper-crust travelers plus the original train 

station’s ticket office, added a bar and private 

meeting rooms to the thriving restaurant. 

The bar area of the infamous train depot 

contains a twenty-seven foot solid mahogany 

hand-carved bar front that was made in the early 

1900s by Brunswick Company. Brunswick’s sonin-law 

decided that they needed to begin 

making these hand-carved bars to supplement 

their business, but not very many of the bars 

were ever manufactured by Brunswick, and it 

is a true beauty to behold. The bar, originally 

purchased by the Garcia Family, was placed in 

the family’s house of ill repute, and put in their 

brothel, which had been located somewhere in 

the Sacramento Mountains. The brothel closed 

sometime in the early 1940s and the bar front 

had been placed in storage and forgotten about 

until Frank Green, one of the early owners of 

The Barn Door Steakhouse, purchased the bar at 

an auction and brought it and placed it inside 

the Pecos Depot. 

Today, Pecos Depot has been designated as a 

National Historical Marker and remains steeped 

amongst its history and memorabilia, which 

even boasts the folklore of Billy the Ghost. 

When the current owners of 

The Barn Door Steakhouse and 

Pecos Depot, Roy and Tami 

Gillean first purchased the 

restaurant and bar in 2004, 

many customers had told the 

new owners that for years the 

Depot was haunted. The new 

owners did not think much 

about the stories until customers 

and employees became 

insistent that indeed, there was 

a ghost in the Pecos Depot. 

Roy became acquainted with 

a local Comanche Medicine 

Man, Lewis Tijerina, who dined 

frequently in the restaurant. One 

day the medicine man asked Roy 

if he knew that the Depot had a 

spirit. Roy told him that he had 

heard rumors and Lewis asked 

how he felt about the spirit and 

told him about his Indian beliefs 

of the spirit world and offered to 

find out more about the ghost. 


A few weeks later, Lewis returned and 

explained to Gillean that he had gone on a 

Comanche journey into the past and discovered 

why the Pecos Depot was now the ghost’s 

home. He was a homeless vagabond who 

traveled the old west rails and became stranded 

in Pecos, Texas with no money, no home, no 

work, and no food. He tried to find work, but 

no one would hire poor Bill. One night, a few 

drunken cowboys shot him and left him for 

dead in the streets of Pecos. 

As Lewis concluded his story of Billy the 

Ghost, he also mentioned a sacred Comanche 

ceremony which might be able to set Billy’s 

spirit free to be able to continue on into the 

other world. Gillean agreed and the Medicine 

Man along with various other Comanche leaders 

performed the ceremony, setting Billy’s spirit 

free from the Pecos Depot. Though people still 

say that Billy’s ghost continues to wander the 

old Pecos Depot, the Gilleans believe Billy has 

peacefully left for another world. 

As the story of Billy the Ghost has continued 

to grow and become known, so has the 

reputation of The Barn Door Steakhouse 

and Pecos Depot. Over the years, The Barn 

Door Steakhouse has earned many awards 

including Best All-Occasion Restaurant, Best 

Special Occasion Restaurant, Best Steaks, Best 

Bread, Best Chef and many other community 

service awards. 

The Barn Door Steakhouse, Pecos Depot 

and South Forty Catering Company has fed 

many famous patrons including Laura Bush, 

Jenna Welch, comedian Bill Engvall, actor 

Tommy Lee Jones, the professor from Gilligan’s 

Island, country music stars Ricky Trevino, 

Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel, Keith Urban, 

Joe Diffy, Tracey Lawrence, and Mark Chestnut, 

along with those such as world renown as 

Zig Zigglar, Dave Ramsey, the cast and crew of 

World’s Toughest Jobs, John Cornyn, Mitt Romney, 

and many dignitaries far and wide. 

Simply put says Roy, “West Texas friendly is 

what you’ll find at The Barn Door Steakhouse, 

and many customers pride themselves in 

making an oil deal, business deal, or proposing 

marriage over one of our hearty meals.” 


FREEDOM 

PONTIAC BUICK, 

GMC TRUCKS, 

INC. 

Outstanding, personal service has remained 

the vision of Freedom Pontiac Buick GMC 

Trucks, Inc., for a historic decade of car care in 

Odessa and its surrounding communities. As the 

Odessa Pontiac Buick and GMC dealer, Freedom 

offers sales, service, parts, and financing, as well 

as an outstanding variety of new and used cars, 

trucks, crossovers and SUVs including the GMC 

Sierra, Yukon, Acadia and GMC Terrain, or the 

Buick LaCrosse, Lucerne and Enclave. 

Purchased by Albert and Josefina Hooker on 

August 1, 2001, the dealership is located at 

5251 East Forty-Second Street in Odessa and 

includes a staff of over fifty people. It has been 

characterized by the winning combination of a 

great product and excellent service coupled 

with integrity and respect that is shown to each 

and every customer. The dealership was the 

honored recipient of the Odessa American 

Readers’ Choice Award for Best Service 

Department in 2004 and Best Pre-Owned Dealer 

in the Permian Basin in 2007 and 2009. 

Maintaining the vehicle is among a customer’s 

highest priorities and Freedom’s 

Goodwrench GM certified technicians meet that 

standard with the personalized care and professional 

service they provide for every owner of 

a Pontiac, GMC or Buick car, truck or SUV. 

Freedom Pontiac Buick 

GMC service and parts 

department also has the 

latest training and offers 

an online appointment 

scheduler that ensures a 

level of convenience and 

professionalism in the 

shop that remains second 

to none. 

The Hooker family and 

Freedom’s sales associates 

and staff members have 

long been involved in 

supporting the communities 

they serve and have 

offered safety inspections 

of car seats for children 


and families through SafeKids WorldWide. The 

dealership has provided over 500 car seats to 

families in the community since their partnership 

with the organization first began in 2005. 

Since 2002, Freedom has also partnered with 

the Odessa Chamber of Commerce to present 

The ATHENA Award, which celebrates the 

potential of all women as valued members and 

leaders of the community and recognizes those 

who support them. The award honors individuals 

who strive toward the highest levels of professional 

accomplishment, excel in their chosen 

field, devote time and energy to their community 

in a meaningful way, and open paths to others 

that may follow their example. 

For more information about Freedom 

Pontiac Buick GMC Trucks, Inc., visit the dealership 

online at www.freedompbg.com. 


MANUEL’S 

ODESSA 

TORTILLA & 

TAMALE 

FACTORY, INC. 

Above: Manuel Gonzales III and son, 

Robert, c. 2010. 

Below: Manuel’s Odessa Tortilla 

& Tamale Factory, Inc., c. 2010. 

Manuel and Herlinda Gonzalez started hand 

grinding corn and baking tortillas on a hot 

griddle in 1932. Now, almost eighty years later, 

four generations have used their secrets of 

carefully blended corns and handmade goodness…and 

still made completely from scratch. 

In 1946, Manuel Gonzalez, Jr., and 

wife Rufina V. opened up a tortilla and 

tamale factory at 1404 East Second 

Street, which is the same road as 

Highway 80. Customers would come in 

to buy products and would ask, “Do you 

have a place where we sit down and eat 

our tamales?” So they put in a couple of 

tables and then started cooking up a few 

beans and rice, and that was the beginning 

of Manuel’s Restaurant around the 

year 1949. Throughout the 1950s and 

1960s the restaurant and factory flourished 

in the same location. The tortilla 

and tamale factory was growing inside 

the back of the restaurant so much that a 

bigger location was needed. 

In 1971, Manuel’s son Manuel Gonzalez III 

bought the tortilla and tamale factory and 

moved it up the street at 1915 East Second 

Street on the corner of Grandview Avenue and 

Second. There, he could focus specifically on 

corn and flour tortillas along with tamales and 

other products. Since then, Manuel’s Odessa 

Tortilla and Tamale Factory has introduced 

numerous other products such as taco shells, 

chorizo, tostada chips, wheat tortillas and white 

corn tortillas. In 2007, Manuel introduced a 

website, www.manuelstamales.com, to accommodate 

customers all over the United States. 

Business was expanding and help was needed 

with operations. 

The youngest of Manuel’s sons Robert 

Gonzalez, moved back to Odessa to help his 

father out with the business in 2008. Since then, 

the factory started making chicken tamales, red 

and green salsa, and chile con queso. These products 

have no preservatives or additives and are 

made from scratch just like generations before. 

For additional information or to place an 

order, visit www.manuelstamales.com or call 

432-332-6676. 


Since 1961, the warm-hearted Lewallen 

family has been in the business of making sure 

the Permian Basin gets its ice during the hot 

West Texan summer through their business 

Commercial Ice Machine Company (CIMCO). 

Curtis Lewallen, founder and president is still 

active at the age of eighty-five. 

It all began early in Curtis’ life when he 

was working with his in-laws, Cecil and 

Angie Plummer at Odessa Hotel Supply, and a 

friend from Lubbock, Fraser McGuire, piqued 

his interest in the new venture. Curtis 

recalls, “Ice machines were new at the time 

and he held my hand until I got the 

business going.” 

Before ice machines became available, 

people got their ice from an old fashioned ice 

house. “In the morning, oilfield company 

service trucks would line up to get their block 

of ice for the day,” said David Lewallen, Curtis’ 

son and company vice-president. “It was just 

Dad, Mom (Kathryn, Curtis’ wife) and one parttime 

service man in the beginning. We started 

as a Scotsman dealer then my Dad became the 

first Ice-O-Matic distributor in the country,” 

said David. 

The business first opened on Kermit 

Highway in what had been a lumberyard. In 

1968, Commercial Ice moved to the current 

location at 501 East Second Street. This 

location was originally a Studebaker dealership. 

The ramp used to move cars into storage is 

still visible on the Second Street side of 

the building. 

For years Commercial Ice participated in 

Odessa parades, driving an old fashioned ice 

truck with children and grandchildren on 

board distributing candy to the delight of all. In 

1965, Curtis’ brother, Harold Lewallen, joined 

the company as a salesman. Harold was with 

the company until his retirement in 1993. 

Elizabeth Blythe joined the company in 1966 as 

a bookkeeper, sharing an office with Kathryn. 

Elizabeth still comes in several days a week. 

After a stint in the Air Force, son David, who 

had helped out during his 

high school years, joined 

the company full time in 

1973. Sister and daughter, 

Sherry Lewallen Fox, now 

a vice president joined the 

company in 1979. Curtis 

and Kathryn’s nephew 

Ronnie Plummer, worked 

during the summer while 

in school, and joined the 

company in 1975 until 

1995 when he moved to 

Atlanta, Georgia. Sherry’s 

daughter Staci Asberry 

McCracken joined the 

company in 1991. The 

latest family addition is 

Cody McCracken, Sherry’s 

grandson and Curtis and 

Kathryn’s great grandson. 

Cody joined the company working part time 

until he finished high school class of 2011, and 

now is working full time. 

Today, CIMCO is experiencing steady yearly 

growth and is busy planning its fiftieth anniversary 

celebration, while working toward another 

fifty years serving its customers. CIMCO is a 

member of the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, 

Texas Restaurant Association, and The Better 

Business Bureau. The company also supports 

the Permian Basin Rehabilitation Foundation, 

Permian Basin Mission, and other charities. 

For more information about Commercial Ice 

Machine Company, visit the company online 

at www.commercialicemachineco.com. 

COMMERCIAL 

ICE MACHINE 

COMPANY 

The Lewallen family in 2011: 

Staci McCracken, Cody McCracken, 

David Lewallen, Sherry Lewallen 

Fox, Kathryn Lewallen, and 

Curtis Lewallen. 


COMPLEX 

COMMUNITY 

FEDERAL 

CREDIT UNION 

A crew dressing a bit on a rig. 

Modern work still requires brains 

and muscles. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE PERMIAN BASIN 

PETROLEUM MUSEUM. 

Originally formed to meet the needs of 

the employees and immediate families of 

the Odessa El Paso Gas Products Company 

Petrochemical Complex, Complex Community 

Federal Credit Union was originally founded 

in December of 1958 as Odessa Complex 

Employees Credit Union. 

The first board meeting was held on 

February 9, 1959 by Ron Lewter, the first elected 

president of the credit union. Throughout 

the historic year, business for the credit union 

was substantial and some reports reveal that 

membership may have even tripled in the first 

twelve months alone. Operations took place via 

the wallet of one of the board members and 

loan decisions were made around the water 

cooler or with a handshake over a cup of coffee. 

In order to keep up with the loan demand, 

OCEFCU was forced to borrow money from 

Government Employees FCU in El Paso. 

In the nearly sixty years since it was founded, 

the credit union has flourished even as it continues 

to meet the successes and challenges of 

the times. Herbert Itz was elected to the board 

in 1964 and was named president and CEO in 

1987. In 1972 the first merger occurred as the 

credit union welcomed 516 members of Dart 

Industries Credit Union, and Shirley Leonard, 

the group’s first staff employee, was hired. 

By 1981 the credit union opened its first 

stand alone branch and celebrated twenty-five 

years of service to its membership in a new 

building in 1983. By the end of the 1980s, 

membership had become so diversified that it 

was christened with a new name, Odessa 

Complex Federal Credit Union. 

As the 1990s progressed, multiple mergers 

and the increasing field of membership encouraged 

the board and management teams to 

attract borrowers. In the early 1990s, OCFCU 

looked to increase its membership through 

companies whose employees were middle class, 

blue collar workers. Through several loan 

promotions, the idea worked and members 

borrowed in great numbers. In 1994, OCFCU 

merged with GENTRO to include 655 new 

members and nearly $2 million in assets. 

In April of 1996 the credit union received its 

community charter to serve the northeast area 

of Odessa and, in June, the name was changed 

to Complex Community Federal Credit Union. 

By the end of the decade, they were voted 

Best Credit Union in the Permian Basin by the 

Odessa American Reader’s Poll. 

As CCFCU entered the twenty-first century, 

operations were expanded into the west side 

of Odessa and a branch and ATM were soon 

opened in the area. In 2003 the credit union 

was approved to include membership 

in Midland County. 

CCFCU celebrated the addition 

of its 100th employee in 2008 

and a new branch was opened 

in Andrews. 

Today, the credit union’s 

original members stand in awe of 

what they started with a great 

idea, a lot of hard work, and a 

little bit of luck. In 2011, Complex 

Community Federal Credit Union 

stands at $182 million in assets, 

over 24,000 members and six 

branches in three cities. 

For more information about 

Complex Community Federal 

Credit Union, visit them at one 

of three locations in Odessa, at 

branches in Midland, Andrews 

and Monahans, or online at 

www.comcfcu.com. 


LIZ’S LINENS 

2011 marks Liz’s thirty-fifth year in 

business. Over the past thirty-five years the 

business has outgrown its original name of 

Liz’s Linens because today, Liz’s is so much 

more than linens. It has been quite an 

undertaking; but the necessary task of name 

change to Liz’s Interiors is finally in motion. 

In 1977, when few women in Odessa 

operated businesses, Midgley leased her first 

location at 1633 West County Road in the 

Plaza Shopping Center. She was fifty years old 

and used the proceeds from the sale of her 

home…a gutsy move. Working by herself, it 

was hard, but Liz loved the people she met and 

enjoyed helping her customers. As the shop 

prospered, it outgrew its original location and 

moved next door to 1631 West County Road. 

The move to the present location at 2735 

North Grandview Avenue occurred in 1992. 

With the additional space, the shop expanded 

its Bridal Registry to include fine china and 

crystal. Prestigious brands such as Waterford, 

Wedgwood and Lenox were added to the 

mix. Through the years, Liz’s has evolved to 

keep up with the demands of its customers, 

offering quality merchandise at an affordable 

price and high end, more luxurious products 

not available in department stores. 

Today, Liz’s Linens continues to offer great 

customer service and encapsulates an array of 

home furnishings and gifts, including accent 

furniture, wall art, decorative accessories, 

bedding, pillows and throws, rugs, lamps, 

florals, china and crystal, and kitchen décor. 

Liz’s also offers gift cards, layaway plan, bridal 

registry, and complimentary gift wrap. 

A family-owned business now three 

generations deep, Liz’s Linens began with Liz 

and her two daughters and now includes her 

granddaughters. True to Liz’s original concept, 

they enjoy serving their customers and consider 

them friends & family. 

Liz Midgley, shown here in 2011, 

was inducted into the Chamber of 

Commerce Business Hall of Fame 

in 2004. 


JOE ALLBRIGHT 

INSURANCE 

Since 1975, Joe Allbright and his outstanding 

staff have offered exceptional insurance 

products to the West Texas area. Combining 

outstanding service and products with the 

agency’s desire to offer each every client the 

kind of friendly and prompt service they 

deserve, Joe Allbright Insurance has created a 

formula for a winning combination. 

The company’s staff includes six licensed 

personnel, Jeri Hawkins, Machele Keesee, CISR, 

Carol Potter, Sylvia Sanchez, Cyndi Smith, and 

Sandy White. They combine over 100 years of 

combined experience who provide a “one-stop” 

resource for businesses, families, and individuals 

seeking insurance and other services. 

From its beginning, the agency has worked 

hard to establish strong, professional relationships 

with an ever-growing client base. They 

are committed to maintaining the highest standards 

of integrity and professionalism in our 

relationship with each and every client. They 

endeavor to know and understand particular 

financial situations and provide clients with 

only the highest quality information, services, 

and products to help them reach their goals. 

Joe Allbright grew up in Andrews and 

attended Baylor University on a football scholarship—majoring 

in Marketing and Finance. 

Joe is a current member and past president of 

the West Texas Association of Insurance and 

Financial Advisors (www.naifa.org). He is also 

a member of the Midland/Odessa Business and 

Estate Council (www.mobec.org), the Odessa 

Toastmasters Club, and the Odessa Chuck 

Wagon Gang. Joe and his wife Vicki have three 

grown children and live in Odessa. 

Joe has been providing clients guidance 

and valuable financial solutions for over thirtyfive 

years. He offers an extensive menu of 

services to meet the needs of clients in various 

stages of life, especially relating to retirement 

accumulation, retirement income planning, and 

legacy planning. 

The agency’s services are extensive and 

include guidance in tax-free wealth transfer 

policies, estate conservation policies, charitable 

giving, and other tax saving strategies; annuities 

that help client’s safely grow their money 

now and solve the problem of outliving income 

during retirement; asset protection strategies to 

protect hard-earned money from lawsuits and 

creditors; auto coverage for premier, preferred 

and standard polices, motor homes, RV’s, boats, 

and motorcycles; policies for homeowners, 

renters, condominium and townhouse owners, 

landlords, mobile homes and flood; business 

insurance, workers compensation, and inland 

marine floaters; level term and universal life, 

mortgage protection, annuities, estate conservation 

policies, long-term care, and disability 

income protection. 

Joe Allbright Insurance is located at 1941 

East Thirty-Seventh Street in Odessa and online 

at www.joeallbrightins.com. 

Above: The Odessa Chuck Wagon 

Gang celebrated its seventieth 

anniversary in 2010. The gang has 

served as an ambassador for Odessa 

with its barbeque feeds throughout the 

country. On the ground, left to right: 

George Keslar, Dudley Bean, Joe 

Cozby, and R. E. Lee, back row: 

Alex Ogilvy, John D. Mitchell, 

Tom Brandon, and Tom Scott, 1947. 






In 1926, Joseph H. McCown and his family 

moved from Paris, Texas, to Odessa, Texas, by 

way of wagon train. There were only five 

hundred people in the county at the time. 

That same year, Joe graduated from Odessa 

High School. He later became a member of 

the first Volunteer Fire Team of Odessa. In 

1927, Joe’s father, Mac, built the first filling 

station in Odessa, Texas, located at Seventh 

and Grant. He also built a bay in the back 

of this filling station to house the first fire truck 

in Odessa. 

Joe and his family owned and operated 

several businesses over the years, one of which 

was a boarding house located at 614 North 

Grant, where the CBS Tower now stands. Joe 

and his brother, Sam, also owned McCown 

Bros. Contractors located on Yukon and West 

County Road. Through the operation of this 

business, they obtained the Midland/Odessa 

contract for the Humble oil field housing 

developments, during the 1950s, for Humble 

Oil Company, which is now known as Exxon. 

Upon retirement from his carpentry career, 

Joe decided to fulfill his longtime dream of 

owning and operating a full service locksmith 

shop. On February 1, 1979, he made his 

dream a reality. Joe, his daughter, Kathy, 

and son-in-law, Tracy, opened up a 989 

square foot shop with minimal equipment and 

materials. It has since grown tremendously 

and is now located in a nearly 4,500 square 

foot building at 2410 North Dixie that is 

stocked full of merchandise and equipment. 

Today, there are three partners—President 

Tracy Brown, Secretary/Treasurer Katherine 

Brown, and Manager Michel Clemmer. Michel 

was made manager and partner on October 2, 

2004, after thirteen years of loyal and 

dedicated service. 

Joe would have been proud to see the legacy 

he left behind and thankful for all of the 

wonderful customers that have made the small 

business so successful. 

In loving memory of Joseph H. McCown— 

September 10, 1908—September 24, 1989. 

K-B SAFE & 

LOCK CO. 

Above: Joseph H. McCown. 

Below: Tracy Brown. 


THE GARRIGA 

LAW FIRM, PC 

Above: José Luis Garriga. 

Below: The Garriga Law Firm offices 

at 311 North Grant Avenue in 

Odessa, Texas. 

For more than twenty years, José Luis 

Garriga has successfully handled thousands 

of personal injury cases and has recovered 

millions of dollars for his clients and their 

families. As the principal shareholder and 

senior trial attorney of The Garriga Law Firm, 

Garriga’s beliefs are simple, “Handle each 

case one at a time and bestow each client 

the special attention they deserve, which 

naturally produces excellence in the firm’s legal 

representation.” For The Garriga Law Firm, the 

theme is clear—work hard, be dedicated and 

fight for the clients’ rights—no exceptions. 

Garriga of The Garriga Law Firm, P.C., 

specializes in plaintiffs’ personal injury and 

wrongful death cases, including automobile 

accidents, eighteen wheeler trucking accidents, 

motorcycle accidents, oil field accidents, 

construction accidents, industrial accidents, 

burn injury cases, products liability cases, dram 

shop cases and others. Garriga has tried to 

verdict as lead counsel over two hundred 

personal injury and/or wrongful death cases in 

all metropolitan cities and specifically in the 

West Texas area. In 2003, as lead counsel in a 

wrongful death case in Beaumont, Texas, 

Garriga obtained a verdict in excess of $163 

million that was featured in Lawyers Weekly 

USA and The National Law Journal and was 

recognized as the nation’s eleventh largest jury 

verdict of 2003. Garriga has also negotiated 

numerous multimillion dollar settlements on 

behalf of his clients in a variety of personal 

injury and wrongful death cases. 

Garriga is licensed to practice law in 

Texas, New Mexico, and Florida, as well as 

the United States District Courts for the 

Western and Southern Districts of Texas. 

Garriga is Board Certified 

in Personal Injury Trial 

Law by the Texas Board 

of Legal Specialization. 

Since 2005, Garriga has 

been chosen as a Texas 

Super Lawyer and published 

in Texas Monthly 

Magazine. Garriga is a 

member of the American 

Association for Justice, 

Texas Trial Lawyers 

Association, Ector County 

Bar Association (president, 

2001-2002) and 

Million Dollar Advocates 

Forum. Garriga is fluent 

in Spanish and his law 

practice is primarily concentrated 

in Texas and 

New Mexico. 


La Margarita Mexican Food opened its 

doors at 1301 South Grant in Odessa on 

January 20, 1992. The fine restaurant’s 

owner Trina Moralez wanted her guests to 

experience homemade Mexican cooking 

created from family recipes handed down 

to her from her grandmother, mother, 

niece and friends. 

Trina’s guests clearly appreciated the 

authentic Mexican food, because the restaurant 

expanded in 1999 to double the available 

floor space. Catering services were also 

added to the menu so the restaurant could 

bring its outstanding selections to customers 

at their choice of locations, as well. 

The restaurant has grown from five to twenty-three 

employees and gross receipts have 

grown from $20,000 to $1.1 million. 

The restaurant’s visionary owner came 

to Odessa and married Agustin Moralez 

after graduating with her bachelor’s degree 

in 1978 in her native Ojinaga, Chihuahua, 

Mexico. Trina credits her decision to 

open La Margarita Mexican Food to her close 

friends, Mickey and Margaret Jones, who were 

instrumental in helping her get the restaurant 

up and running. They had such a hand in it, 

in fact, that many people assumed the 

restaurant was named after Margaret. In 

truth, the name for the restaurant was first 

suggested by a friend who owned the Mi 

Tierra liquor store in Odessa and felt that 

naming the restaurant La Margarita might 

help make Grant Avenue into a street 

similar to San Antonio’s famed River Walk. 

Trina became active in the Odessa 

Chamber of Commerce early in her 

career and was named the Chamber’s 

“Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2008. She 

has received many honors and awards 

for her service to the community, as 

well, including the United Way Project, 

Blue Print Distinguished Services 

Contribution and Dedication to Our 

Community Small Business Award, the 

Hispanic Heritage Hispanios Ejemplates, 

was inducted into the Business Hall of 

Fame and was honored with the 2005 

R. C. Hoiles Award and the 2005 

Outstanding Businesswoman Award. Trina 

also serves on the Board of the Odessa 

Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and 

volunteers with many local charities. 

LA MARGARITA 

MEXICAN FOOD 

Trina Moralez. 


INDUSTRIAL COMMUNICATIONS, INC. 

Left: Industrial Communications, Inc. 

Right: Albert Dale. 

The life of Industrial Communications, Inc. 

and its founder, Albert Dale, has remained 

intertwined for over a half century. Using the 

tools of the trade he learned in the Navy while 

serving in World War II and the Korean War, 

Albert’s “private sector life adventure” in the 

communication industry began in Pecos, Texas 

in 1953. Driven to succeed by a lifelong, 

childlike curiosity, he traveled in his own Piper 

Cub plane across West Texas to reach farmers 

who needed two-way radios repaired. 

Albert established a partnership, Midwest 

Communications, in 1954 and opened a service 

facility in Odessa in 1957. After expanding the 

business and incorporating in 1958, the growing 

company became Industrial Communications, Inc. 

Wayne Winkler and Charles Wood worked 

closely with Albert as technicians in the earliest 

days of the company’s growth. The trio soon 

developed a solid partnership that survived the 

changes in technology and the inevitable hills 

and valleys of an oilfield economy. When the West 

Texas economy nearly collapsed in the 1980s, the 

men continued forward. Albert’s son, Billy Dale, 

remembers his father’s characteristic perseverance. 

“If you want to know a man’s true character, 

bad times will manifest it…As was the case 

with many businessmen of his ilk during this 

period, he was in financial trouble. Nothing 

could have taught me more than the next three 

years of my dad’s life. He realized that life has 

peaks and valleys and you must enjoy the peaks 

and overcome the valleys…it took time for he 

and his partners and employees to recover, but I 

am proud to say they survived with class.” 

In 2004, ICI celebrated a half century as a 

Motorola Service Station, providing authorized 

warranty, installation and repair services for 

Motorola two-way radio and paging products. 

The company continues to lead the industry 

with smart, experienced, capable people ready to 

deliver communication service, technologies, and 

products to best serve the communication needs of 

its customers. The company is led by Betty Dale, 

president, Charles Wood, vice president, and 

Peggy Clemons, controller, and remains in Odessa 

at 2535 North Jackson. With thirty employees, the 

company services over 1,500 customers from the 

Big Bend Area to the Seminole and Sweetwater to 

Van Horn, including southeast New Mexico. 

Albert’s visionary desire to create a 

communication powerhouse continues into the 

twenty-first century. Yet his legacy remains in 

who he was to his family and friends and 

customers. His son defines him best, “He was a 

loving spirit anchored by his religious faith and 

a warm soul that touched the heart of anyone 

who met him. His spirit is an example of what 

flows through the people of West Texas. He was 

a self starter and a man who made West Texas a 

better place to live…his soul has ascended, but 

the great memories of the special times and 

special lessons remain with me.” 

For more information about ICI, visit the 

company online at www.ici-connects.radiodealer.com 

and www.ici-connects.com. 


For over thirty years, Western National Bank 

has been building a reputation as a leading Texas 

commercial bank. Proud to be an integral part of 

the Ector County community, the bank provides 

comprehensive financial services that fuel 

companies large and small. It is the largest 

privately owned bank based in the Permian Basin. 

In 1977 it was with great anticipation that 

eight local business leaders raised $2 million in 

capital and opened Western National Bank. 

Located on West County Road, this was the first 

bank to be located in “West Odessa.” 

The founders’ venture as bankers was shortlived. 

The oil bust of the mid-1980s changed the 

economic landscape, and in 1985 the Wood 

family of Odessa, led by Clay Wood, bought 

controlling interest in the bank, injecting muchneeded 

capital. Given new life, Western National 

Bank began to thrive under the Wood’s leadership. 

Owning a bank someday was not what Clay 

had in mind when he returned home after serving 

in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Borrowing 

money from his mother, he purchased a service 

station in Penwell, a job that was hot and dirty and 

did not come with “banker’s hours.” But he applied 

a sharp business mind with old-fashioned hard 

work to grow this single station into a wide range 

of business interests that now extends throughout 

West Texas and has included gasoline distribution, 

real estate development, office supply retail, 

convenience stores, and banking, among others. 

Clay was not alone in his efforts. In 1946, Clay 

married Louise Ince, both originally from Spur, 

and together they raised three sons: Greg, Jack, 

and Don. All of the family continue to live in 

Odessa and remain involved in numerous civic 

and charitable organizations. Among other honors, 

Clay, Jack, and Don have each been honored 

as “Entrepreneur of the Year” by the Odessa 

Chamber of Commerce. The family, 

individually and collectively, has also 

been recognized by various groups for its 

philanthropic work, including being 

named “Philanthropic Family of the 

Year” in Odessa. And Western National 

Bank remains a central focus, with Clay 

serving as chairman of the board and 

Jack serving as president and CEO. 

As Western National Bank has 

grown, additional locations have 

joined the original branch that still 

operates on West County Road. These 

include: Grandview, Odessa, in 1987; 

North Texas Street, Odessa, in 1990 

which was demolished and rebuilt in 

2009; West Wall Street, Midland, in 

1995; North Midland Drive, Midland, 

in 2000; San Pedro, San Antonio, in 

2007; and West Wadley, Midland, in 2008. 

The bank’s asset growth has kept pace with 

its branch expansion. At the time of purchase in 

1985, Western National Bank had assets of $40 

million. In 2010 the bank passed $1 billion in 

assets, placing it among an elite group of 

privately held banks. 

Regardless of its size or prominence, the bank 

focuses passionately on its core values: 

• Financial security and stability are nonnegotiable. 

The bank is consistently ranked 

among the top-performing banks of its size in 

the country. 

• A relationship is better than a deal any day 

and the relationships cultivated over the past 

twenty-five years weave throughout the bank’s 

operations, creating opportunities, growth 

and success. 

• The true measure of a business is not in what 

it takes but in what it gives back. Without 

fanfare, the bank has been a stalwart 

community citizen, creating opportunities for 

many and a better community for all. And this 

will not change. 

Western National Bank. Still local, strong, 

and independent. 

WESTERN 

NATIONAL 

BANK 

Above: Louise Ince and Clay Wood on 

their wedding day, June 1946. 

Below: Clay and Louise Wood with 

sons Jack and Don. 


ODESSA 

SPRING, 

BRAKE & 

AXLE, INC. 

Above: Odessa Spring, Brake & Axle’s 

original location on Second Street. 

Below: Odessa Spring, Brake & Axle 

as it appears today on Second Street. 

It was 1938, just twelve years after the 

discovery of oil in the area that Perryman Sales 

Company of Dallas opened the Odessa Spring & 

Axle Company as a wheel alignment, brake and 

spring company at 1304 East Second Street. Jack 

W. Stafford purchased the company in the mid- 

1940s, and E. G. Babb joined the company in 

1948. Babb’s experience in the parts department 

for General Motors was utilized to change the 

growing Odessa company to a parts and service 

facility. In 1954 the company moved to its 

expanded facilities at 1600 East Second Street. 

Throughout the remainder of the twentieth 

century, Odessa Spring & Axle would become 

the area’s premier parts and service company as 

the Permian Basin oil boom swept the area. 

After Jack Stafford died in 1979, the 

company continued through the boom and 

bust of the oil-related economy. Many loyal 

employees remained during this difficult period, 

including Jerry Hanks, long time vice president 

and general manager and now the company’s 

president; Barbara Budd, office manager, and 

now corporate secretary-treasurer; James “Pee 

Wee” Hutchins, shop foreman; and Genaro 

Hernandez, supervisor of the parts department. 

In 1991 the company was purchased by D. M. 

Edwards of Tyler. A dedicated businessman with 

a commitment to integrity and excellence, his 

strong belief in the Permian Basin area provided 

the three necessary “C’s” for the flourishing 

company—capital, character, and commitment. 

The word “brake” was added to the company 

name in 1991 to form Odessa Spring, Brake & 

Axle, Inc. Every employee was retained during 

the transition, while three former long-time 

key employees rejoined the company: Service 

Manager Jack Reynolds, Service Department Sales 

Manager J. C. Teague, and Parts Department 

Manager James Henderson. 

In 1994 the former French Tool facility at 

Second Street and Dixie was purchased and 

remodeled to fit the company’s needs. Featuring 

over thirty-two truck and trailer service bays and 

more than 62,000 square feet of parts, office, and 

service area, it is now the finest such facility in the 

Texas and New Mexico area. Parts inventory was 

expanded with additional factory lines added, 

modern shop equipment, office computers and 

telephone systems were purchased and the 

company has now proudly reclaimed its position 

in the industry as “First Rate Since ‘38.” 

The company is a longtime Gold Member of 

the Odessa Chamber and proud supporter of 

the Permian Basin Oil Show and the Chuck 

Wagon Gang. 


OBERKAMPF 

SUPPLY, 

INC. 

Originally Abilene Plumbing Supply Company, 

which had its main offices in Abilene, Texas, had 

branch stores in Odessa and San Angelo, Texas. 

In the fall of 1938, Harry E. Oberkampf purchased 

the Odessa and San Angelo branches. 

The name of the new company in these two 

cities became Oberkampf Plumbing Supply Co. 

J. A. Waldrop in Odessa and Melvin Bell in 

San Angelo were the managers of the original 

company’s stores. Oberkampf retained both as 

store managers in Odessa and San Angelo of his 

new wholesale plumbing supply company. 

During this period the stores sold plumbing 

fixtures, faucets, plumbing accessories, water 

heaters and wall heaters. These products were 

sold exclusively to plumbing contractors, 

which, in turn, sold and installed them to the 

general public. 

In 1952, Oberkampf wanted to offer evaporative 

coolers at the stores. For some reason this 

venture proved unsuccessful, 

and the coolers were no longer 

offered until a few years later. 

In 1958, still determined to 

have evaporative coolers in 

his product line, Oberkampf, 

against the wishes of Waldrop 

and Bell, again decided to offer 

them to his contractors. 

Kenn Hill was hired to manage and oversee 

the cooling product line in the Odessa area 

territory, which extended from Big Spring to 

Pecos and from Lamesa to Hobbs, New Mexico. 

Forced air heating, refrigerated air conditioning, 

heating and cooling supplies were added 

over time to become a highly successful addition 

to the company. 

In the mid 1960s, Waldrop and Bell each 

purchased their respective operations from 

Oberkampf. The Odessa operation then became 

Oberkampf Supply, Inc., which eventually 

opened branches in Midland and Lubbock. 

Since the early beginning of Oberkampf Supply, 

four generations of the Waldrop family, which 

included J. A. and his son, David Sr., a grandson, 

Butch, and great-grandson, David Allen, have been 

actively involved with the company. 

In 2007, J. A. turned the business over to Butch, 

who currently owns and operates the corporation. 

Above: The original Oberkampf 

building used in 1938. Today it is an 

auto parts house. 

Below: Built in 1972, the offices and 

warehouses are in use today. There 

are a total of five warehouses on the 

property today. 

Bottom: New offices and warehouse 

were built in 1953. To save on 

material cost, Oberkampf sent the 

metal siding on this building to 

Odessa from a building that was 

taken down in San Angelo. The name 

on the end of the building is barely 

visible today. The building is still 

used today for warehouse space. 


HILL’S 

CARPET SHOP 

Willie Hill, Sr., built his flooring business 

from the ground up. In 1955, Hill began his 

career as a carpet layer’s assistant in Odessa, 

Texas. In 1970 his dream became a reality when 

Hill’s Carpet first opened its doors, and it has 

been family owned and operated ever since. 

Hill’s Carpet understands that any home 

remodel can be very stressful. Willie and 

his staff are constantly educating themselves 

by attending manufacturing classes and 

workshops in order to pass their knowledge on 

to customers and make sure they are getting the 

product that best suits their needs. 

From carpet to ceramic tile Hill’s Carpet has 

it all, not to mention the fact that they are, so 

to speak, a “one-stop shop.” They do not just 

specialize in flooring. Need new cabinets? The 

cabinet maker’s at Hill’s Carpet can custom build 

cabinets of any shape and size to suit your needs. 

Is your kitchen or bathroom in need of a 

makeover? The staff at Hill’s Carpet can literally 

do it all. A complete renovation is right down 

their alley. Their trained professionals are fully 

equipped to handle any and all of your kitchen 

or bathroom needs. A small refurbishing of your 

cabinets and some paint on the walls can make 

a huge difference. A complete renovation for an 

exciting new look is definitely an option as well. 

Hill’s Carpet can help you custom design your 

kitchen and/or bath from beginning to end. 

Willie Hill, Jr., is always ready to give you the 

same reliable customer service that his father 

has given since the beginning. “Customers from 

the early days still come in to buy flooring from 

us. They know they’ll receive the same honest, 

courteous, straightforward treatment that my 

father established through the years,” Willie 

says. “We know the right questions to ask before 

introducing a product to a customer.” 

The possibilities are endless at Hill’s Carpet 

Shop. For more information call (432) 332-6921 

or (432) 580-6135. 


FURNITURE 

LAND 

Furniture Land offers the finest in home 

furnishings from contemporary to traditional 

and rustic furniture and accessories for home 

décor and comfort. Offering merchandise with 

sophisticated style and providing excellent 

customer service, Furniture Land includes a 

unique variety of products from mattresses, 

bedroom sets, living room sets, dining room 

sets, curios, and lamps, to children’s furniture, 

grandfather clocks, rugs, and other home 

décor accessories. 

After separately emigrating to America from 

South Korea in 1977, company president Yung 

Ham met his wife and now the company’s vice 

president, Yoon Ham in 1984. They married in 

1985 and had no plans to open their own store 

as Yung was working for an oil company and 

Yoon was working for an architectural company. 

After saving enough money, the Hams 

decided to open a small store. It quickly became 

their primary occupation and, after more than a 

decade, the dream of owning their own building 

was fulfilled and Furniture Land held its 

grand opening on September 1, 1999. Yoon had 

majored in Fine Arts while attending UT Dallas 

and used her creativity in this store through 

interior designing. 

Due to the recession of the early twentyfirst 

century, Furniture Land faced economic 

conditions that were extremely unfavorable for a 

new small business, but the couple was able to 

endure those difficult times and prosper into the 

successful business that it has become today. 

Even before the store opened, eager customers 

began coming into the store—asking for the 

prices before the furniture was even priced—an 

encouraging sign to its owners! 

Because of the amount of merchandise 

ordered to keep up with customer demand, 

the Hams purchased another building in 

preparation for the future. Today, Furniture 

Land occupies nearly a thirty-thousandsquare-foot 

building at 2030 Andrews Highway 

in Odessa. 

Furniture Land and its owners and staff are 

proud supporters of the communities it serves 

and often donate funds for local school activities 

as well as furniture to a local church to help 

furnish “Missions Homes,” which provide living 

accommodations for missionaries that are 

temporarily returning home. 


The Mesa Building at The University 

of Texas of the Permian Basin. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 

TEXAS OF THE PERMIAN BASIN. 

QUALITY OF LIFE 

Healthcare providers, school districts, 

universities, and other institutions that contribute to 

the quality of life in Ector County 


Odessa Country Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 

Permian Basin Regional Planning Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 

Medical Center Health System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at the Permian Basin . . . 108 

Ector County Independent School District . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 

Emergency Communication District of Ector County . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 

The Healthy Heart Center of Odessa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 

Odessa College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 

Odessa Regional Medical Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 

Grandview Veterinary Clinic, P.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 

Odessa Christian School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 

The University of Texas of the Permian Basin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 

Midland Odessa Transportation Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 

Angel Veterinary Clinic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 

Odessa Chamber of Commerce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 

QUALITY OF LIFE ✦ 101

ODESSA 

COUNTRY CLUB 

The Odessa Country Club was created in 

1939 after two long years of planning and 

preparation. A group of individuals met to discuss 

the possibility of organizing a country club 

for Odessa and each felt so passionate about it 

that they donated $125 to begin promoting 

plans for the club. Within those two years, the 

city of Odessa flourished with the completion of 

a new courthouse and a city park, as well the 

start of construction on a new post office and a 

new school building. 

What was initially a small group of individuals 

interested in the club eventually grew to over 

100. In July of 1938 a site was purchased on the 

east side of Ector County from Roy Parks, Jr., and 

the actual construction of Odessa County Club 

was begun. The golf course was the first to be 

built. John Bredemus, one of the best known golf 

course architects in the state, was employed to lay 

out the course and superintend its construction. 

As the club was promoted, many people 

became involved. Donations of pipe, furnishing 

actual labor, and companies loaning their equipment 

and labor force were all part of the success 

in seeing the course built and opened in 1939. 

Due to the hard winter freeze at the time, it was 

not until August of the following year that members 

were able to play on the course. Joe Bolds 

was employed as the golf professional and 

groundskeeper and he started the work of growing 

the grass greens. 

Work on the facility’s first clubhouse was 

begun in 1938 and completed in August of 

1939. That building served as the clubhouse for 

Odessa Country Club until a new building was 

built and opened in the 1958-59 season. The 

current clubhouse was opened in 2006. 

R. O. Canon served as the first president of 

Odessa Country Club from 1939 to 1940. Much 

of the club’s early history was preserved in a 

review of the organization and building of 

the Odessa Country Club, which was written by 

Canon. Canon was also listed first in the stock 


ook records issued May 25, 1939, followed by 

John Marks, who served as the club’s second 

president from 1940 to 1941. The club’s other 

founders included: P. C. Harbour, R. W. Sewell, 

R. T. Waddell, M. O. “Mack” Boring, L. A. Neal, 

T. A. Pickering, J. B. Kuykendall, and J. W. Peery. 

The economy greatly affected the club early 

on, with the ups and downs of the ranching 

industry and the boom and bust of the oil 

industry. World War II was also a factor. The 

Odessa Country Club by-laws included a military 

membership, stating that military members 

shall be those persons in the armed forces of the 

United States who temporarily reside in Texas 

and who are otherwise eligible for membership 

under the provisions of the by-laws. Mrs. Ray 

(Nancy) Cole said that during a period of time 

during World War II, because of the war rations 

and the economy, the club was not able to 

open for Sunday lunch. Club members were 

unphased by the closing, and simply brought 

their own lunches. 

Other important individuals throughout the 

history of the club included: Ted Roden, Cody 

Harbour, Clyde Yarbrough, Bill Brooks, John 

Cooper, Balie Griffith, and Shorty Hall. The 

Club has had as many as 1,225 members at any 

given time. 

The Odessa Pro-Am Golf Tournament was 

started in 1949 as the “Brain Child” of then 

Odessa Country Club golf professional, Shorty 

Hornbuckle, and club members, Ted Roden and 

Bill Breeden. Local and area golfers and golf fans 

would have the opportunity to watch some of 

the finest golfers in the country for the next 

twenty years until the tournament was suspended 

prior to the 1970 Pro-Am Tournament. The 

Quarter Century Partnership Golf Tournament, 

which began in 1963, continues today and 

attracts contestants from across the state. 

Today the new clubhouse, which opened in 

2006, is housed in its beautiful Southwest-style 

building and is situated between the club’s two 

golf courses. 

The Odessa Country Club is proud to have 

been involved in the community for “over” 

seventy years and we look forward to being a 

part of the future of this great city. 

For more information regarding Odessa 

Country Club, please visit them online at 

www.odessacountryclub.com. 


PERMIAN BASIN 

REGIONAL 

PLANNING 

COMMISSION 

Founding Executive Director Ernie 

Crawford, 1971-2001. 

The Permian Basin Regional Planning 

Commission (PBRPC) was founded in March of 

1971 to solve area wide problems through 

promoting intergovernmental cooperation and 

coordination, conducting comprehensive regional 

planning, and to provide a forum for the study 

and resolution of area wide problems. While 

supporting individual governments in combining 

their resources and talents to meet challenges 

beyond their individual capabilities, PBRPC 

operates a variety of programs and services 

designed to meet regional needs including 

the Area Agency on Aging, Criminal Justice, 

Solid Waste, 911 Emergency Communications, 

Homeland Security, and Economic Development. 

Additional services provided in the past have 

included transportation planning, health services 

planning, regional data services and workforce 

development services. The PBRPC is a council of 

governments under the authority of the Texas 

Legislature. The State of Texas is divided into 

twenty-four planning regions, the Permian Basin 

being designated as Region Number 9. The 

seventeen county PBRPC region encompasses an 

area of 23,515 square miles with an approximate 

population of 400,000. 

Ernie Crawford was hired as the commission’s 

first executive director and was joined 

by one employee with a budget of $34,000. By 

2001 the commission’s budget would increase 

to $20 million and include a hundred employees. 

Crawford continued as executive director 

until his retirement in 2001. Gary Gaston, former 

Andrews County judge, served as executive 

director until his retirement in 2007. 

In 1972, Harley Reeves was hired to run 

comprehensive Health Planning and emergency 

medical systems that led to today’s 911 systems. 

Today’s enhanced 911 communication systems 

that provide updated equipment to the region’s 

public service answering points is directed by 

Gail Robinette. 

In 1975, Crawford met with NASA officials 

to examine satellite infrared photography to be 

used in regional land use planning. NASA officials 

expressed an interest in working on special 

projects for local governments. The PBRPC had 

submitted a grant application to the Department 

of Health and Human Services to develop a 

model regional Emergency Medical System 

(EMS) Plan and received one of two grants 

awarded in the country. Crawford and Reeves 

made an appointment with Chris Craft, Johnson 

Space Center, to solicit their assistance to develop 

the Emergency Medical Plan for the region. 

NASA agreed to assist in the plan development 

and furnished doctors, nurses and communications 

experts at no cost to the PBRPC. 

Ultimately, NASA and PBRPC staff developed 

and implemented the first regional EMS system 

in the United States. The two million dollar 

grant allowed the commission to purchase 

ambulances, develop a regional communications 

system and train emergency medical 

technicians for the entire seventeen county 

region. The PBRPC/NASA plan became the 

model rural EMS plan across the United States. 

Bill Smith started the Manpower Program, 

workforce development services, in 1971 and 

then moved into the Area Agency on Aging, 

providing services, information and referral to 

our senior citizens in the region. Willie Taylor 

took over the workforce services in 1973 and 

with the help of his assistant, Donna Harrison, 


they continued to provide employment and 

workforce development services to citizens 

around the region through offices located in 

Odessa, Midland, Big Spring, Fort Stockton, 

Lamesa, Monahans and Pecos. 

PBRPC also established the first “regional law 

enforcement academy” in the early 1970s. 

Richard Kleinhans served as director of the 

Criminal Justice Program and the Permian Basin 

Law Enforcement Academy became the first to 

provide mandated certified training to officers. 

Radio communications in law enforcement also 

evolved with PBRPC assisting in the development 

of high frequency radio communications 

and high speed teletype system. 

Jerry Tschauner was hired in 1974 to secure 

grants for water/sewer, housing studies, waste 

water, parks/recreation and transportation 

projects. Waste water was the largest federal 

grant. Tschauner later served as director of 

transportation and regional services. Today 

Virginia Belew directs regional services. 

PBRPC was also designated by the governor 

of Texas as the Metropolitan Planning 

Organization (MPO) for the Midland-Odessa 

urbanized area to study the special problems 

of transportation for these urban cities. The 

Commission continued to update the transportation 

plan that eventually led to the current 

EZ Rider bus system. The MPO services were 

eventually reassigned to the city of Odessa and 

are now operated under the Midland Odessa 

Transportation Organization (MOTOR). 

Today, the headquarters of PBRPC are 

located at 2910 LaForce Boulevard at the 

Midland International Airport. The first office 

was located in the airport terminal building. 

Both the cities of Odessa and Midland wanted 

the commission located in their respective 

cities, however, a neutral area was chosen 

between both cities. 

Through the years, this historic commission 

has provided a venue for cities, counties, and 

special districts to establish relationships 

with one another and has created a solid, 

unswerving tradition of working together for 

the benefit of the region. 

Current Executive Director Terri 

Moore began her career with the PBRPC 

in 1983. Tenured administrative staff 

includes Helen Grady, CFO, with 

twenty-seven years of experience and 

Human Resources Administrator Cheryl 

Keith with twenty-one years of experience. 

PBRPC has an annual budget 

exceeding ten million dollars and 

currently operates state/federal grants 

with services to the region in following 

areas: Area Agency on Aging, Criminal 

Justice/Law Enforcement, Homeland 

Security, Economic Development, 

911 Strategic Planning, Solid Waste 

Planning, Community Development 

Block Grant Program, Propelling Green 

Jobs/Pathways Out of Poverty Training Program 

and State Planning Assistance. 

Above: The PBRPC sign at current 

location at 2910 La Force Boulevard 

in Midland, Texas. 

Below: The PBRPC Regional Map. 


MEDICAL CENTER 

HEALTH SYSTEM 

Odessa’s Medical Center Health System is a 

community-based teaching system, which provides 

high-quality healthcare to all Permian 

Basin residents. The Medical Center Health 

System encompasses Medical Center Hospital, 

Family Health Clinic, Center for Health & 

Wellness, Clinics at Walmart, Professional Care, 

Permian Basin Healthcare Network and the 

Medical Center Health System Foundation. 

Serving as the regional referral hospital for the 

seventeen surrounding counties of the Permian 

Basin, MCH prides itself on obtaining the reputation 

as one of West Texas’ healthcare leaders. 

hospital, which was dedicated on November 27, 

1949 and opened on December 5, 1949. 

In 1951 the name was changed to Medical 

Center Hospital and a progressive growth 

occurred across the medical complex throughout 

the ensuing decades. By the mid-1990s, 

completion of a $20.3 million Phase I expansion 

project included the construction of the east 

wing, an expanded Coronary Care Unit, 

Telemetry Unit and two additional floors were 

added to the Central Tower in 1996 and 1997, 

as well as the opening of the MCH Breast Care 

Services Center, the creation of the MCH 

Wound Care Center and the beginning of the 

TTUHSC Internal Medicine Residency Program. 

The health system is proud of an historic 

sixty years of caring and has seen groundbreaking 

transitions over the past six decades. It 

has expanded from an eighty-five bed hospital 

serving several thousand patients every year 

to become a 362 bed regional medical center 

treating more than 100,000 patients annually. 

Its evolution began in 1948 when there were 

three hospitals in Ector County. Dr. Elbert Thorton 

owned a six-bed hospital; Dr. Emmett Headlee 

owned Headlee Hospital; and Dr. J. K. Wood 

owned the thirty-four bed Wood Hospital. Due to 

the need for more healthcare services, a group of 

citizens spearheaded by Dr. Wood met with the 

Ector County Commissioners to propose a new 

The new millennium brought the renovation 

of The Family Birthplace. The MCH Diabetes 

Center opened in 2001, as well as the Ann 

Roden Deaderick Cardiac & Pulmonary 

Rehabilitation Center. MCH was recognized for 

fifty Years of Membership in American Hospital 

Association and Texas Hospital Association. 

2002 brought the opening of the new MCH 

Business Office, the new MCH Physical Therapy 

& Rehab Services, and the new MCH Chest 

Pain Center. 


In 2003, MCH opened the Center 

for Heart Disease including Cath Labs 

and permanent relocation of Chest 

Pain Center and MCH CareStar Air 

Ambulance service began, as well as 

the introduction of Bariatric Surgery. In 

2005, major renovation of the Laboratory 

Department occurred, as did the groundbreaking 

for the new Cancer Center, a 

partnership of Medical Center Hospital 

and West Texas Cancer Center. 

The West Texas Cancer Center at 

MCH and the Family Health Clinic 

Dental Clinic opened in 2006 and the 

Wound Care Program expanded in 2007 

to include hyperbaric therapy. 

In 2008 the Endovascular Operating Room 

opened. The Family Health Clinic received 

Federally Qualified Health Center 

status. In 2010, MCH opened the 

Clinics at Walmart East and West. In 

October 2010 the Center for Health 

& Wellness opened at Highway 191 

and Faudree Road. This state-of-theart 

center includes Mission Fitness, a 

medically-integrated workout facility, 

Urgent Care, sports medicine, radiology, 

laboratory, diabetes center, physical 

therapy, Cardiac and Pulmonary 

Rehabilitation as well as physician 

offices. The Medical Center Health 

System was also developed in 2010. 

MCH has received numerous 

awards throughout its existence, 

including the HealthGrades 2009 

Orthopedic Excellence Award, 

HealthGrades 2009 5-Star 

Rated–Spine Surgery, and 

HealthGrades 2010/2011 5-Star 

Rated–Maternity Care. 

While the facility has grown, 

so has its staff. With more 

than 1,600 employees, Medical 

Center Health System is the 

second largest employer in 

Ector County and has more 

than 280 practicing physicians 

in over thirty specialties. Due 

to the tremendous community 

support, Medical Center Health 

System will continue to grow for many decades 

to come! 


TEXAS TECH 

UNIVERSITY 

HEALTH 

SCIENCES 

CENTERATTHE 

PERMIAN BASIN 

Texas Tech University Health Sciences 

Center at the Permian Basin provides educational 

opportunities through the Schools of 

Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health Sciences. 

Founded in 1969 as the Texas Tech University 

School of Medicine, the proposal was first 

drafted by Texas Tech University in 1964 in 

an application to the Texas State Legislature. 

The plan called for a multi-campus School of 

Medicine that would include an administrative 

center at Lubbock and regional campuses in 

Amarillo, El Paso, and Odessa. 

After its founding, the university flourished 

and soon expanded into the Permian Basin in 

1974. In 1979 the charter was expanded to 

become the Texas Tech University Health 

Sciences Center, leading the way for establishment 

of the Schools of Nursing and Allied 

Health Sciences. 

The School of Medicine provides medical 

education for third and fourth year students 

and residency programs for currently-licensed 

physicians seeking specialized training. In July 

of 2009, Texas Tech University Health Sciences 

Center at the Permian Basin welcomed the first 

class of third year medical students. 

In additional to their educational roles, the 

School of Medicine faculty and resident physicians 

provide medical care to more than 20,000 

West Texas patients each year through clinic 

and hospital patients. Texas Tech Physicians of 

the Permian Basin, the medical practice element 

of TTUHSC, provided more than $17 million in 

medical services in fiscal year 2010. 

Texas Tech Physicians at the Permian Basin 

provided $4,107,203 in uncompensated charity 

care. TTUHSC also administers sixteen area 

Women, Infants and Children (WIC) offices. 

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology 

is the provider of the breast and cervical cancer 

service program for the Texas Department of 

State Health Services for twenty-one counties. 

The newest Texas Tech Physicians facility was 

opened in Midland in 2010. 

The School of Nursing offers a traditional 

undergraduate program through which students 

earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. The 

undergraduate offerings also include a second 

degree program that allows students with a 

previous baccalaureate degree to receive a BSN 

in an accelerated twelve month program, and 

the RN to BSN that allows current registered 

nurses to obtain their Bachelor of Science 

degrees in nursing. 

TTUHSC School of Nursing graduate programs 

provide additional opportunities for 

registered nurses or those who have obtained a 

bachelor of science of nursing degree to earn 

advanced masters or doctorate degrees. 

TTUHSC School of Allied Health Sciences 

offers a doctorate of Physical Therapy and 

Master in Physician Assistant studies on 

the Permian Basin campus. Physical Therapy 


graduates are qualified to apply for state 

licensure and sit for the National Physical 

Therapy Licensure Examination. 

The Physician Assistant program is one of the 

highest-ranked institutions based on state board 

pass rates, achieving a 100 percent pass rate 

in 2009. Physician Assistant graduates have 

ranked in the top twenty percent of the nation for 

five years based on national physician assistant 

board performance. 

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center 

at the Permian Basin remains dedicated to its 

mission of improving the health of people by 

providing high quality educational opportunities 

to students and healthcare professionals, 

advancing knowledge through scholarship and 

research, and providing patient care and service. 

The administrative offices of TTUHSC are located 

at 800 West Fourth Street in Odessa; and clinic 

offices are located 701 West Fifth Street in Odessa 

and at 301 North Avenue North in Midland. Visit 

the school online at www.ttuhsc.edu/odessa. 


ECTOR COUNTY 

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT 

In 1887 the Texas Legislature divided the 

great expanse of west Texas into several counties 

including Ector. At the time Ector County was 

attached to Midland County for administrative 

purposes and that same year Midland County 

commissioners created a school district consisting 

of all of Ector County. Commissioners hired 

Inez Rathbun as Odessa’s first teacher. She 

taught classes in February and March of 1890. 

Following her, Mrs. E. R. Bryan taught classes 

for seven months in 1890-1891. 

In 1891, Methodist settlers built a one-room 

school where Alice Wright taught fourteen 

elementary students. Unfortunately the school 

burned down a year later. Rumor had it that a 

rowdy gang of cowboys outraged by the 

Methodists’ stand on alcohol consumption 

torched the building. After the fire the county 

government took the reins of educating 

Odessa’s children. School taxes were levied for 

the first time in February 1891. The tax rate 

was twenty cents per one hundred dollars valuation, 

which was considered very high. The exofficio 

Superintendent of Schools M. J. Buchanan 

reported that school employees had much 

difficulty collecting the taxes, which he felt 

were illegal anyway. The first school building 

was at Sixth and Texas Streets and was used 

for a decade until a new school was built at 

Tenth and Lee Streets in 1909. In 1921 a 

special act of the Texas Legislature consolidated 

seven common schools into the Ector County 

Independent School District. 


In 1925, Murry H. Fly was hired as superintendent 

of schools becoming the district’s first 

professional school administrator. During his 

twenty-five year tenure he led the push toward 

making ECISD a first-rate educational system. 

The Permian Basin ranching area evolved 

into a leading oil producing center and growth 

of the school district coincided with the activity 

of the oilfield. The discovery of oil in Crane in 

1926 spurred the first population boom. In two 

years school enrollment jumped from 209 to 

700. In 1927 a high school addition was added 

to the single school building; in 1929 Odessa 

High School was constructed and in the 1930s 

four new elementary schools were built. 

Another spike followed World War II. 

Blackshear High School for African-American 

students opened in 1948. Over the next 12 

years, 17 elementary schools were built, as were 

3 junior highs, and 2 high schools—Ector High 

School in 1957 and Permian High School in 

1959. Yet another boom occurred in the 1980s 

in the wake of the energy crisis of the 1970s. 

The district built six new elementary schools, 

including one named for former superintendent 

Fly, and added two junior high campuses. 

Presently, ECISD utilizes forty campuses to 

educate some 27,000 students, and employs 

more than 3,400 people. It operates two 5-A 

high schools, Odessa High School and Permian 

High School and an Advanced Technical Center 

which lets students embark on college—and 

career—focused education. The District also 

boasts 6 junior highs, 25 elementary schools, 

and 2 early education centers. 

The music programs in ECISD have gained 

state and national recognition through outstanding 

performances of the bands, choirs, and 

orchestras at music conventions throughout the 

nation. ECISD also has the largest harp program 

in the country. 

Perhaps no high school program in the 

country is as well known as the Permian High 

School Panthers football team, which was 

immortalized in the best-selling book and 

movie Friday Night Lights. Permian High and 

Odessa High play their games in Ratliff 

Stadium, a 17,000-seat venue that draws visitors 

from across the United States. Each spring 

ECISD hosts the West Texas Relays, one of the 

state’s longest running track meets. 

In 2001 the citizens of Ector County passed 

an $89 million bond paving the way for 

thirty-one campuses to be renovated or completely 

rebuilt. The work is now complete giving 

ECISD students access to a shiny, new 

learning environment. 

ECISD strives to be a world class leader in 

education. The district’s ultimate goal is to 

develop world ready, life-long learners while 

ensuring relevant teaching, engaged learning, 

dynamic innovation and maximizing all 

available resources. 

For more information about Ector County 

Independent School District, visit online at 

www.ectorcountyisd.org. 

Below: Photograph courtesy of the 

Odessa American newspaper. 


EMERGENCY 

COMMUNICATION 

DISTRICT OF 

ECTOR COUNTY 

Above: Original office staff after the 

move from Odessa Police 

Department: (left to right) 

Operations Manager Kevin Jones; 

Administrative Secretary Janet Bean; 

and Executive Director Les Blalock on 

September 11, 1995. 

Below: On September 10, 1998, 

Daniel Leonard met Governor Bush to 

receive the ‘9-1-1 for Kids Hero 

Award’ with his family and was joined 

by District employee Operations 

Manager Kevin Jones, ENP. 

On April 1, 1970, the first 

9-1-1 telephone system in the 

State of Texas began operation 

in Odessa after Mayor Jim Reese 

received a letter from a local citizen 

regarding a magazine article 

about 9-1-1. Mayor Reese 

directed Assistant City Manager 

Ernie Crawford to study the 

new and innovative service. 

Several months later, with the 

help of Southwestern Bell, the 

phone system was installed at 

the Odessa Fire Department’s 

Central Fire Station at 200 

North Lincoln Avenue. 

The new Basic 9-1-1 service allowed voice 

transmissions only, making the public safety 

agencies rely solely on verbal communication 

with the public. Telephone subscribers of the 

Emerson and Federal telephone exchanges 

within Ector County were allowed to dial 9-1-1 

from their phone sets and connect immediately 

with a fire dispatcher. Calls requiring an ambulance 

or fire response would then be dispatched, 

while calls requiring a police or sheriff 

response would be transferred to the Odessa 

Police Department. 

On November 3, 1987, residents of Ector 

County and the cities of Odessa and Goldsmith 

voted to create the Emergency Communication 

District of Ector County, which allows a legislative 

controlled tariff fee to be charged for funding 

of the Emergency Communication District 

with local monies and local control. The group’s 

original Board of Managers included Board 

Chairman Everett Berry, Ector County 

appointee; Vice Chairman John Landgraff, Ector 

County appointee; Secretary Don Carter, city of 

Odessa appointee; Board Member 

John Scott, volunteer fire department 

appointee; Board Member 

Clifford White, city of Goldsmith 

appointee; and Neal Marshall, nonvoting 

member and Southwestern 

Bell Telephone appointee. 

When it was first created, the 

District, at the direction of its Board 

of Managers, contracted with the 

city of Odessa to administer 9-1-1 to 

Ector County and the cities of 

Goldsmith and Odessa. This responsibility was 

transferred from the Odessa Fire Department 

to the Odessa Police Department and placed 

under the control of the newly formed Computer 

Operations Division. 

Lieutenant Les Blalock and Sergeant Kevin 

Jones with the Odessa Police Department were 

transferred into the new division and charged 

with upgrading the program into an Enhanced 

9-1-1 system, which would allow name, phone 

number, and address of a caller to be displayed 

at the 9-1-1 call-takers position and provided 

selective routing, which enabled any call to 

9-1-1 to be directed to the proper public safety 

responder. This also allowed the expansion of 

the 9-1-1 phone system to begin receiving 

9-1-1 calls from the remainder of the community 

and included the Goldsmith, Redondo and 

Terminal telephone exchanges. 

By the fall of 1992, the remarkable growth 

of the District and its 9-1-1 service required 

the hiring of the system’s first full time 

staff and included Executive Director Les 

Blalock, Operations Manager Kevin Jones, and 

Administrative Secretary Janet Bean. 

In 1998 the State of Texas Advisory 

Commission on Emergency Communication 

sought to recognize, for the first time ever, 

children who were instrumental in using 9-1-1 

properly in an emergency situation. On 

September 10, 1998, Daniel Leonard, a second 

grader from Zavala Elementary in Odessa, was 

named as one of these heroes. Daniel’s family 

had a medical emergency, which required him 

to cross a major highway to reach a payphone 


to dial 9-1-1 for emergency assistance. Due to 

his education through school and the 9-1-1 program 

administered by the District, Daniel knew 

what to do, who to call, and what to say. Daniel 

met with Governor George W. Bush and received 

his ‘9-1-1 for Kids Hero Award’ for his efforts. 

In 1999 there were over 43,000 calls made 

to 9-1-1, with thirty-two percent of the calls 

coming from wireless phone lines. In 2005 

over 57,000 calls were made to 9-1-1, with 

fifty-three percent of the calls coming from 

wireless phone lines. For the year 2009 

there were 79,914 calls made to 9-1-1, with 

seventy-five percent of the calls originating 

from wireless phone lines. 

Today, the system’s dedicated staff 

includes Executive Director Kevin Jones, 

ENP; Operations Assistant Philip Mroz; and 

Administrative Assistant Jeanna Olberts. 

The Emergency Communication District of 

Ector County is a proud supporter of many 

unique and outstanding charitable organizations 

and community activities including such 

diverse programs as the Red E. Fox Public 

Education Program, Chamber of Commerce, 

Telecommunicators Week, the Annual 

Telecommunicator of the Year Awards, 

county fairs, medical clinics, safety fairs, 

and mascot appearances. 

Above: A 9-1-1 plaque honoring the 

first 9-1-1 system in the state of Texas 

that was in Odessa on the twenty-fifth 

anniversary of 9-1-1 service in Texas, 

September 11, 1995. 

Below: On September 11, 1995, 

Former City of Odessa Assistant City 

Manager Ernie Crawford and Former 

Mayor Jim Reese, local leaders in the 

community who authorized the 

implementation of the original 9-1-1 

system in Odessa, were present at the 

twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of 

9-1-1 service in Odessa. 


THE HEALTHY 

HEART CENTER 

OF ODESSA 

Above: Healthy Heart Center 

500 East Fourth Street. 

Below: Suresh Gadasalli, M.D. 

Opposite, top: Standing, left to right 

are Renee Janosik and Sowjanya 

Sudesh; seated are Amy Mundy, LVN 

and Dalia Harvey, c. June, 2010. 

Opposite, bottom: Todd Smith, RT 

(N); Blanca Chavez, RDCS; Brittany 

Overturf, CNA and Gabriela 

Gonzales, MA, c. June, 2010. 

Since 1994, Dr. Suresh N. Gadasalli and The 

Healthy Heart Center in Odessa have helped 

patients understand and protect heart health. 

The Center’s well-trained, compassionate staff 

has one common goal—patient first, heart care. 

Dr. Gadasalli states, “Our ability to understand 

our patient’s concerns and to ease their fears 

makes it easier for them and their loved ones. 

This is the care they need and the attention 

they deserve.” 

The Healthy Heart Center and Dr. Gadasalli 

provide evaluation of chest pain, trouble breathing, 

heart palpitations, fainting spells and congestive 

heart failure. Dr. Gadasalli specializes in 

preventive, acute care and interventional cardiology. 

The Healthy Heart Center provides cardiac 

testing such as echocardiography, electrocardiograms, 

nuclear medicine (cardiology testing), and 

diagnostic cardiac catheterization. Cardiovascular 

stress testing, holter monitoring, event recording, 

pacemaker and defibrillator analysis are 

performed onsite at The Healthy Heart Center. 

Coronary stent insertion and coronary (heart 

artery) angioplasty are done at the hospital. 

The Healthy Heart Center is located at 500 

East Fourth Street in Odessa. Dr. Gadasalli is 

affiliated with the area’s outstanding hospitals. He 

also provides outreach clinics in Alpine, Andrews, 

Fort Stockton, Monahans, Kermit and Pecos. 

The Healthy Heart Center’s onsite Nuclear 

Medicine and Echocardiography facilities have 

been granted accreditation by ICANL and 

ICAEL. The Center is one of an important number 

of nuclear cardiology and echocardiography 

laboratories in the United States to be recognized 

for its commitment to high quality patient 

care and its provision of quality diagnostic 

testing. Accreditation status signifies that the 

facility has been reviewed by an independent 

nonprofit agency that recognizes the laboratory’s 

commitment to quality testing for the diagnosis 

of heart disease. 

The Center’s founding director, Dr. Gadasalli 

remains dedicated to promoting a better quality 

of life for the people of the Permian Basin by 

giving back to the community and staying at 

the forefront of technology in the complex and 

sophisticated field of cardiology. He has been 

involved in many innovative cardiology procedures 

throughout his career, and his clinical 

findings have been published by the worldrenowned 

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. 


Dr. Gadasalli, M.D., F.A.C.C. has been in private 

practice in Odessa since 1994, specializing 

in Preventive, Diagnostic and Interventional 

Cardiology. He inaugurated Healthy Heart 

Center’s new facility in October 2000. Dr. 

Gadasalli was recruited through MCH of 

Odessa’s Cardiology Program when MCH 

wanted to expand their product line. After 

completing his residency at the University of 

Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Dr. Gadasalli served as 

Chief Medical Resident at Sinai Samaritan 

Medical Center in Milwaukee and completed his 

fellowship training in Cardiovascular Diseases at 

the Milwaukee Heart Institute. 

Initially ABIM Board Certified in cardiovascular 

disease in 1995, Dr. Gadasalli renewed his 

ten year certification in 2008. He was one of the 

first cardiologists in the United States to have 

been ABIM Board Certified in the specialty of 

Interventional Cardiology (1999-2009). 

Dr. Gadasalli is actively involved in various 

local charities such as The Children’s Miracle 

Network, Pilot Club, and United Way. He has 

also been voted as the “Best Physician of the 

Permian Basin” by Odessa American readers for 

several years. 

Dr. Gadasalli was one of thirteen men and 

women honored on the evening of February 19, 

1998 for Excellence in Community Service and 

for their significant contributions to the quality 

of life in Odessa. He was the recipient of the 

Heritage of Odessa Foundation's fourteenth 

annual Award for Excellence in Community 

Service in Health and Science. 

In 2002 the Gadasalli Family donated the 

20,000 square foot vacated Northpark 6 Theater 

next to Permian High School in Odessa to the 

Ector County Independent School District. The 

ECISD trustees approved the donation and have 

turned the theater building into the Gadasalli 

Fine Arts Center. 

Dr. Gadasalli has been nominated by his 

peers and has received recognition as a Texas 

Super Doctor for three years in a row and has 

been featured in the Texas Super Doctors 

section of Texas Monthly. 

In 2007 Dr. and Mrs. Suresh Gadasalli 

received a lifetime achievement award from the 

United Way of Odessa. The award is given 

to those who reach a significant contributing 

milestone within United Way’s giving level. 

For more information about Healthy Heart 

Center, visit www.healthyheartcenter.net. 


ODESSA 

COLLEGE 

First established by the Ector County 

Independent School District Board of Trustees, 

Odessa College (OC) began with 184 students 

in 1946 and has grown steadily through the 

years. Initially housed in temporary quarters in 

the old Odessa High School, OC’s first classes 

were conducted after public school hours in late 

afternoons and evenings. Many of the students 

were young soldiers who had recently returned 

from World War II and wanted to prepare 

themselves for new careers. 

In 1948, Ector County voters approved 

$200,000 to buy land for a college building. 

The first building, the Science Building, was 

completed in the summer of 1949 on a five-acre 

plot in the 2600 block of Andrews Highway. 

The building was later renamed Baskin Hall to 

honor the college’s first registrar. 

Dr. Murry H. Fly, who had headed the Ector 

County public schools since 1925, assumed 

the added responsibility of being the college’s 

first president. The first college staff included 

Dr. Fly; two administrators, W. A. Miller, dean, 

and Roy L. Baskin, registrar; and six faculty 

members, Margaret Ascher, Mary Roach, H. L. 

Baskin, Bettye Travis, Virginia Felder, and 

W. A. McIntosh. 

During the 1948-49 school year, a student 

committee was appointed to recommend a 

mascot name for the school’s athletic teams. Some 

of the proposals were “Cobras,” “Rattlesnakes,” 

“Cowboys,” and “Broncos.” But the one selected 

by the student body was “Wranglers.” 

In 1954 a woman’s drill and whip popping 

team, Las Senoritas de las Rosas, which means 

the girls with the roses, was formed. The group 

was named in honor of College President Murry 

H. Fly, who always wore a red rose in his lapel. 

The members soon became the ambassadors for 

the college and traveled hundreds of miles to 

parades around the country. 

The campus grew to fifteen buildings on a 

thirty-five acre plot by 1960. 

In 1982, OC began work on a new recreation 

complex. This $7 million Sports Center with 

more than 110,000 square feet of floor space 

opened in 1984. Today it houses athletics, 

physical education and community recreation 

activities and is used by Odessans of all ages. 

In 1989, KOCV-FM began airing National 

Public Radio programming. 

During the 1990s, OC received a number 

of major property donations as the college 

continued to expand to serve the educational 

needs of its students and service area. 

In 1997 a West Texas businessman donated 

one of the largest and best-equipped equine 

facilities in the nation to OC. Located in nearby 

Gardendale, Texas, the 120-acre ranch, called 

the Odessa College Rodeo and Agriculture 

Graham Center, provides training and hands-on 

skills in every area of rodeo competition for 

both men and women. 

In 1999 an Odessa physician and his wife 

donated a 27,000 square foot building in Pecos 

to house the OC Pecos Technical Training 

Center. After renovations to the building made 

possible by an $860,000 Economic Development 

Administration grant, the center now houses 


administrative and faculty offices, technical and 

vocational learning labs and a student lounge. 

In 2009 the new Dick and Amelia Saulsbury 

Conference Center, a state-of-the-art meeting 

facility designed to serve OC’s local and 

college communities, opened. The center, 

graciously underwritten by the Saulsbury 

Family Foundation, can accommodate more 

than 200 people. 

Also opening in 2009, the Wrangler Express 

Center, OC’s one-stop shop is a convenient, 

easy-to-access service center 

located in the Student 

Union Building. Here new 

or returning students can 

obtain information, apply 

for financial aid, register, 

make tuition payments 

and much more. 

Today, OC has grown 

into a thriving community 

college serving almost 

28,000 square miles, one 

of the largest service areas 

of any Texas community 

college. OC enrolls more 

than 5,000 students in 

credit courses during a 

long semester. Continuing 

Education, Adult Basic 

Education and Community 

Recreation courses provide 

other opportunities and non-credit courses to 

about 12,000 individuals. The $55 million 

main campus in Odessa spreads over 80 acres 

and includes some 25 buildings that house 

more than 150 classrooms, laboratories and 

other facilities. Odessa College offers extension 

courses and/or Adult Basic Education courses 

in 10 towns as well as offering “collegeNOW,” 

dual enrollment classes in 18 area high schools. 

For more information about Odessa College, 

visit the campus online at www.odessa.edu. 


ODESSA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER 

Odessa Regional Medical Center was 

founded in 1975 by fourteen obstetricians, 

pediatricians, and family practitioners as Odessa 

Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Through the 

years, the hospital grew and evolved into a fullservice 

healthcare facility and the name was 

changed to Odessa Regional Hospital in 1995. 

In June 2007, Odessa Regional Hospital 

purchased Alliance Hospital and changed its 

name to Odessa Regional Medical Center to 

reflect its larger campus and more comprehensive 

services. The hospital now has 230 beds with 250 

physicians on staff and over 700 employees. 

Today, ORMC offers a wide spectrum of 

healthcare services including comprehensive 

cardiac services, critical care, innovative surgical 

procedures, maternity care, neonatal intensive 

care, emergency care, and general medical care. 

ORMC has evolved over the years, but one thing 

has not changed—the hospital still offers the 

same family-friendly atmosphere and personal 

attention patients have come to trust. Hospital 

highlights include: 

• Emergency Medicine: ORMC offers a 12-bed 

emergency department providing comprehensive 

emergency medical services 24 hours a 

day, 7 days a week. Emergency room doctors 

and other healthcare professionals are always 

on hand to handle a medical crisis with timely, 

high-quality treatment. Because all medical 

emergencies are stressful, ORMC staff is 

committed to easing patient fears and concerns 

by providing frequent progress reports about 

diagnosis, condition and treatment. 

• Heart Care: The comprehensive heart program 

at ORMC includes two interventional cardiac 

catheterization laboratories, an interventional 

radiology suite, heart surgery, 64-slice CT 

imaging and a broad range of cardiology 

services. ORMC believes it is important to 

have leaders in heart care close to home, 24 

hours a day, 7 days a week, whenever they are 

needed. The experienced heart team is 

committed to delivering expert care through a 

broad spectrum of cardiac services, from 

sophisticated testing for early diagnosis and 

treatment to heart surgery. 

• Diagnostic Imaging: Advanced diagnostic 

imaging technology including 64-slice CT 

scanner, MRI, nuclear medicine, digital 

mammography and ultrasound are available. 

• Women’s Health: Since ORMC delivers more 

babies than any other healthcare facility in the 

Permian Basin, it is no wonder ORMC is the 

only healthcare provider in West Texas to 

receive a five-star rating for clinical excellence 

in maternity care from HealthGrades four 

years in a row. 

ORMC also offers the following services: 

• The area’s only Fertility Lab: Regional 

Perinatal Centers—high-risk pregnancy 

clinics in both Odessa and Midland. 

• Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit—opened 

when ORMC was built in 1975, the NICU was 


the first unit of its kind in the Permian Basin. 

Since that time it has expanded and added 

state-of-the-art equipment to provide the 

highest level of NICU care available in the area. 

• Specialty women’s services: Specialties 

include gynecological surgery and the Breast 

Care Center with digital mammography and 

stereotactic biopsy capabilities. 

• Surgical Services: ORMC offers a wide range of 

surgical procedures. Many can be performed 

on a convenient outpatient basis. The surgical 

suites at ORMC provide state-of-the-art 

surgical equipment including orthopedic 

navigation for total joint replacement and high 

definition laparoscopic suites for minimally 

invasive procedures. 

• Minimally Invasive Procedures: Thanks to 

breakthroughs in medical technology, many 

surgical procedures that once involved major 

operations can now be performed through 

tiny incisions and instruments guided by 

sophisticated, miniature cameras. As a result, 

patients heal faster, can return more quickly 

to their normal activities, and experience 

much less scarring. 

• Surgical Weight Loss: The new Surgical Weight 

Loss Center at ORMC helps patients lose 

weight and keep it off. ORMC goes far beyond 

the surgery by providing a life-changing 

program that includes nutritional, physical and 

emotional guidance, as well as support groups. 

• Orthopedics: Damaged bones and joints can 

cause significant pain and limit a person’s 

ability to function. ORMC offers a variety of 

orthopedic services from advanced diagnostic 

imaging technology to innovative surgical 

procedures and rehabilitation programs. 

Other Services/Programs available at Odessa 

Regional Medical Center: 

• Critical Care 

• Antepartum 

• Endoscopy Services 

• Pediatrics 

• Inpatient Rehabilitation 

• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 

• Complete Care Clinic 

• Pediatric After Hours 

• SeniorAdvantage 

• Wound Care 

Odessa Regional Medical Center is located 

at 520 East Sixth Street and on the Internet 

at www.odessaregionalmedicalcenter.com. 


GRANDVIEW 

VETERINARY 

CLINIC, P.C. 

Odessa native Georgia Elizabeth Dawn 

Myers, D.V.M. founded Grandview Veterinary 

Clinic in 1998. In search of a good location 

with curb appeal to start a small animal 

facility, the façade of the city’s landmark Alamo 

building had always caught her attention—she 

has a distant relative that died in the Alamo and 

her roots extend to the settling of Texas and 

Stephen F. Austin. 

Dr. Myers changed the name from the 

Alamo to Grandview in 1998 to reflect a new 

beginning and today Grandview Veterinary 

Clinic is a comprehensive practice of Veterinary 

Medicine, offering surgery, dentistry, ultrasound, 

hospitalization, boarding for clients, 

professional services, vaccination, microchips, 

a complete pharmacy, in-house laboratory, outside 

extended laboratory services, telemedicine, 

prescription and nonprescription diets, heartworm 

preventatives with external and internal 

parasite control and, most importantly, a devoted 

love for its patients. 

Dr. Myers was in the second grade when her 

teacher, Mrs. Lovett, wrote in her book at the 

end of the school year that she hoped that she 

would become the veterinarian that she had 

wished. She followed this love to horses and 

was part of the Junior Rodeo Association participating 

in barrels, poles, flag roping, breakaway 

roping and pleasure classes. 

Applying to veterinary school in 1973 when 

the class sizes for females had just opened up to 

more positions, Dr. Myers graduated at age twenty-three 

as Cum Laude with thirty-one other 

female veterinarians. She practiced in Waco for 

five years before returning home to Odessa. 

Shortly after her arrival in Odessa, Dr. Myers 

opened Gardendale Veterinary Clinic to a mixed 

animal clientele before selling the business 

in 1995. When she first opened Grandview in 

1998, there was one key processor in the clinic 

for prescription labels—there are now eighteen 

computers to handle the work. Imaging was 

completed by an old chemical processor—today 

the clinic offers ultrasound, digital dental and 

digital radiography. The clinic was also remodeled 

in 2007 to provide for more comfort and 

convenience for its clients. 

Today, Grandview Veterinary Clinic includes 

2,310 clients and 4,428 patients cared for by 

Dr. Myers and two associates, Dr. Jennifer 

Johnson, TAMU 2001 and Dr. Andy Cooper, 

TAMU 1991. Pat Brown serves as the office 

manager with two receptionists, two full 

time and one part time kennel attendant, 

Registered Veterinary Technician Cynthia 

Lovell, and five Certified Veterinary Assistants. 

Dr. Myers is active in several charities 

including Christian Youth Night at the Rodeo, 

and the Boys and Girls Club of Odessa and 

she attends Stonegate Fellowship. She has 

served on several committees at Odessa 

High School and for the ECISD in the 1990s, 

Rainbow Emmaus, multiple task forces and 

committees with Texas Veterinary Medical 

Association and served on the board of 

directors for thirteen years. She helped to 

write and launch a teaching module 

(Certified Veterinary Assistant level 1, 2 and 

3) for veterinary assistants to better serve 

the public and currently serves on a 

similar task force for business managers and 

hospital administrators. 

For more information about Grandview 

Veterinary Medicine, please visit them online 

at www.grandviewvets.com. 


ODESSA 

CHRISTIAN 

SCHOOL 

A visionary mandate to “teach the whole 

child” has remained the founding principle of 

Odessa Christian School (OCS) for nearly a 

half century in Ector County. The innovative 

school debuted in the area in 1966 as a private 

Christian school leading students to love God 

and seek His truth by training them in a Christcentered 

environment that emphasizes moral 

and academic excellence while inspiring them 

to develop their God-given talents. 

In 1966, OCS operated in the educational 

building of the Church of Christ at 600 North 

Jackson in Odessa offering pre-kindergarten, 

kindergarten and first grade to forty-four students 

with plans for an additional grade to be added 

each year through six grades. In September of 

1969, classes from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade 

began using the new building at 2000 Doran 

Drive. Today, OCS employs approximately thirty 

outstanding and dedicated faculty and staff 

members, while school enrollment reaches 135 to 

175 students every year. 

Founders of OCS included J. F. Perkins, Joe 

R. Thompson, A. Neil McDonald, Jr., and Ken 

Griffin. The original board of directors included 

Dan Billingsly, Ken Griffin, A. Neil McDonald, 

Jr., H. D. Hatch, Berry H. Mansell, J. E. Perkins, 

and Joe R. Thompson. Other key individuals in 

the early days of OCS included Dr. J. D. Cone, 

Al Squire, Wallace Cunningham, Frank Harrell, 

Bob Watts, Joe Cross, and Wanda Carter. 

OCS is a member of the National Christian 

School Association (NCSA) and the Odessa 

Chamber of Commerce. Students participate in 

the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s “Pennies 

for Patients,” “Jump Rope for Heart” for the 

American Heart Association, as well as annual 

food drives for the West Texas Food Bank. 

Odessa Christian School sponsors the West 

Texas Christian Track Meet at Ratliff Stadium in 

the spring of each year. 

For more information regarding Odessa 

Christian School, please visit them online at 

www.odessachristian.com. 


THE 

UNIVERSITY OF 

TEXAS OF THE 

PERMIAN BASIN 

The University of Texas of the Permian Basin 

is a general academic university of The University 

of Texas System. Starting in 1973, Midland and 

Odessa’s goal for an upper-level school was 

realized when 1,011 students registered in the 

first classes. 

UT Permian Basin was established through 

the visionary efforts of many West Texans, 

including John Ben Shepperd, Dick Slack and 

Ace Pickens. Civic leaders such as Aubrey 

Barlow, J. Conrad Dunagan, Tom “Pinky” Roden, 

W. D. Noël, E. G. Rodman, Louis Rochester, 

Gene Garrison, Dan Hemphill, Charles Perry, Bill 

Elms, Kenneth Esmond, Roy Elsner, and Derryl 

Henry donated money and used their influence 

to launch and maintain UTPB. 

The university’s presidents include Billy 

(Howard) Amstead, 1970-1974; V. R. Cardozier, 

1974-1982; Duane M. Leach, 1983-1991, 

Charles A. Sorber, 1992-2001; and W. David 

Watts, who was named to the post in 2001. 

During Watts’ tenure, UTPB’s campus and 

student population has grown. The construction 

of state-of-the-art facilities includes a new 

performing arts center, a science building, a 

student center and apartment style housing for 

over 500 students. 

Granted four-year status in 1991, UTPB has 

evolved from a commuter campus to one that 

attracts younger students. Enrollment has risen 

to 4,133 for the first time in University history. 

A member of NCAA II, UTPB offers eleven 

intercollegiate sports. 

The University offers thirty-two undergraduate 

degrees and nineteen graduate programs. 

Students benefit from research involvement 

with professors who hold the highest credentials 

offered in their fields. Courses and programs 

are offered online and at Midland College. 

Engineering has started at UTPB and is already 

the sixth largest program. Recognized by 

Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, UTPB 

is accredited by the highest level professional 

organizations, in business, education, social 

work and art. 


The Midland Odessa Planning Organization 

(MOTOR MPO) is the regional transportation 

planning organization responsible for working 

with local, state and federal governments, as 

well as private and public sectors, to coordinate 

the highway, transit, and land use planning 

processes in the MOTOR MPO Metropolitan 

Area Boundary. 

The Metropolitan Area Boundary includes 

the cities of Odessa and Midland, and portions 

of the counties of Midland and Ector. The 

MOTOR MPO is the organization that sets the 

transportation priorities within the Metropolitan 

Area Boundary for the expenditure of federal 

highway and transit dollars through a continuing, 

cooperative, and comprehensive planning 

process that provides citizens the opportunity 

to participate. The MOTOR MPO’s 2010-2035 

Metropolitan Transportation Plan was developed 

utilizing an innovative, transparent, 

citizen-led discussion and process that resulted 

in the development of one over-arching 

community vision for preferred growth and 

transportation investment priorities for the 

region. The long range transportation plan 

includes all modes of transportation, and 

“quality of life” projects. 

The MOTOR MPO is governed by a five 

member Policy Board. The members include 

elected officials of the cities of Odessa and 

Midland, the counties of Ector and Midland, 

and the TxDOT-Odessa District Engineer. The 

MOTOR MPO Policy Board adopts all MPO 

plans and programs and determines regional 

transportation policy. 

The theme of the 2010-2035 Metropolitan 

Transportation Plan was “Two Cities, One 

Community….A Place to Live, A Place to Work, 

A Place to Play.” The MOTOR MPO attempts 

to carry out this theme by bringing together 

the energies of both cities to create a seamless 

and thriving metropolitan region by finding 

innovative ways to fund needed transportation 

infrastructure, and finding economically sound 

solutions to the transportation challenges in 

our region. 

For more information about the Midland 

Odessa Transportation Organization, visit the 

group online at www.motormpo.com. 

MIDLAND ODESSA 

TRANSPORTATION ORGANIZATION 


ANGEL 

VETERINARY 

CLINIC 

From left to right: Doctors Jeff and 

Becky Battershell; Mary and 

Dr. Bill Robertson. 

Following graduation from Texas A&M College 

of Veterinary Medicine in 1963, Dr. William R. (Bill) 

Robertson headed north to Fort Worth. He worked 

in the stockyards there for three months as a government 

meat inspector. Having his fill of carcasses, 

Dr. Robertson set his sights for the west. He signed 

a lease for a clinic in Odessa. 

With forty dollars in his pocket, big dreams and 

high hopes, Dr. Robertson arrived in Odessa. 

Unfortunately, he blew in at the same time as one 

of West Texas' infamous dust storms. Growing up 

in Edwards County with big live oak trees, rivers 

and creeks, the new veterinarian in town did not 

know what to make of the awful blowing dirt or 

Odessa, Texas. Dr. Robertson was committed to 

the lease on the clinic, so he set up shop. 

The clinic consisted of an old oilfield camp 

house. The laboratory was propped up with two 

broom handles. An old wooden garage with a few 

cages served as the kennel and there was one large 

animal pen made of half eaten boards held together 

with baling wire. The only good thing was a nice 

sign out front that read, "Angel Veterinary Clinic." 

Without funds for a luxury like a new sign and 

knowing that A comes before R in the phone directory, 

Dr. Robertson kept the name. One year later, 

he purchased the clinic. 

Five days after Dr. Robertson bought the clinic, a 

young lady named Mary Anglin came in with her 

injured dog. Mary would become Dr. Robertson’s 

partner in life and in the business. Together, they 

worked fourteen to sixteen hour days, accepting sick 

and hurt animals at night and on weekends. The 

practice grew and so did the Robertson's family. 

Their four children, Kirk, Lisa, Becky and Bill Jr. 

were expected to help in the clinic. To the delight of 

Dr. Robertson, his daughter Becky followed him into 

veterinary medicine and returned to the practice 

with her husband, Dr. Jeff Battershell, in the 1990s. 

During the early years, Robertson converted the 

old garage into his clinic and moved the family 

into the camp house to save money, in 1970, a fire 

gutted the clinic. By that afternoon, Mary had fixed 

up part of the house for Dr. Robertson. With his 

stainless steel surgical table, instruments and other 

salvaged items and the help of his suppliers; he 

continued practicing without interruption and 

began the rebuilding process. 

The Robertson's encountered many good people 

in Odessa. In the 1960s, twin brothers 

Kenneth and Kendall Brumelle would cross the 

pasture and West Twenty-Seventh Street, a two 

lane road without shoulders, to work in the clinic 

after school. One of their duties was to bury the 

animals that Dr. Robertson tried very hard to save 

but sadly lost. After high school graduation, the 

boys went to work for a casing crew for the summer. 

The foreman told them that they were faster 

than a backhoe. They both graduated from Texas 

Tech and were successful in their chosen careers. 

Mike and Yealonda Logan came to work with 

Dr. Bill and Mary in the 1970s. Mike was a jack of 

all trades. He took over the outside chores, breeding 

horses, treating animals and welding the pens 

to hold them. Yealonda worked in the office doing 

whatever was necessary for the day to day operation 

of the business and giving Mary some relief 

from the stress of being a partner, wife and mother. 

Dr. Robertson was also able to get some stress 

relief. Dr. Debra Gratehouse came to work at the 

clinic and took over some of the case load and those 

late night emergency calls. She was a wonderful 

addition to the staff and made an invaluable contribution 

to the practice for nearly thirteen years. 

The Robertson's have weathered more than a 

few of those west Texas dust storms, but they feel 

their lives have been truly blessed. Through the 

years, they have enjoyed the support of Mary's 

parents, George and Opal Anglin, their lifelong 

friends, Joe and Charlie Alexander 

and many kind people in the town they 

consider their home, Odessa. With a 

healthy business climate, the clinic has 

grown to four full time veterinarians and 

one relief veterinarian. The doctors with 

the help of long time staff members, Debby 

Whittemore, Sheila McDorman, Karen 

Ward and many others continue to offer 

the best possible veterinary care to the 

loyal clientele of Angel Veterinary Clinic. 


Founded in 1934, the Odessa Chamber of 

Commerce is a volunteer premier business 

organization, incorporated in the State of Texas. 

The Chamber promotes the civic, economic, 

industrial, agricultural, educational and 

social welfare of the people of Odessa. In 

addition, the Chamber extends the domestic 

and foreign trade of commercial interests in 

our community. 

The Odessa Chamber of Commerce unites 

more than twelve hundred business 

organizations, individuals, and professional 

firms to create a unique central agency working 

to improve business and build a better 

community. More than eighty percent of the 

membership is composed of small companies 

interested in prospering and creating a healthy 

environment in which to conduct business. 

Most importantly, the Chamber is a 

dynamic group of citizens who realize that 

they can accomplish more collectively 

than any one business can do individually. 

The strength of the Chamber lies in 

attracting the greatest number of 

participants and creating a pool of 

resources from which to draw ideas, 

energy, and finances. 

The Odessa Chamber of Commerce has 

a long history of honoring community 

members who make a difference in the 

lives of citizens. “Outstanding Citizen of 

the Year,” “Entrepreneur of the Year,” and 

Business Hall of Fame, the ATHENA 

Award, and the Annual Meeting and 

Awards Banquet are just a few ways 

the Chamber recognizes distinguished 

members and volunteers. 

The Odessa Chamber of Commerce 

also hosts networking events such as 

Business After Hours, Holiday Open 

House, and a Welcome Reception for 

Texas Tech University Health Sciences 

Center Medical Students. These events are 

free to attend and offer an opportunity to 

meet other Chamber members. 

The Chamber takes a leadership role 

in issues that affect the Permian Basin and 

its residents. Transportation, education, 

and both state and federal legislative 

issues are areas which the Chamber is 

actively involved. 

Leadership training is one of the most 

valuable services offered by the Odessa 

Chamber of Commerce. Leadership Odessa was 

founded in 1978 and has offered hundreds of 

members an opportunity to learn and become 

more active in the community. Participation in 

the program carries with it a commitment to 

build on the foundation provided by past 

leaders and develop the quality of life in Odessa 

to its fullest potential. Leadership Odessa 

creates an awareness of community needs, while 

enhancing existing leadership skills. Junior 

Leadership Odessa offers a shorter version of the 

program to High School Juniors. 

The Odessa Chamber of Commerce mission 

is to provide leadership to further develop and 

market the City of Odessa, Ector County, and 

the Permian Basin. 

ODESSA 

CHAMBER OF 

COMMERCE 

QUALITY OF LIFE ✦ 125

The Odessa El Paso Natural Gas 

Products Company. El Paso Styrene 

Plant & Refinery. 





BUILDING A GREATER ECTOR COUNTY 

Ector County’s real estate developers, construction 

companies, heavy industries, and manufacturers 

provide the economic foundation of the county 


Ball & Seat Specialties Company 

Texas Specialty Ball Co. 

SphereTec Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 

Precision Coatings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 

McKay Equipment Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 

Selman & Associates, Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 

Light Tower Rentals, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 

McGuire Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 

Slip Service Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 

Tripple M Oil Tool, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 

CEMEX Construction Materials South, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 

Sulzer Pumps, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 

WNCO Valve International Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 

BB Chemicals, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 

Albritton Machine, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 

Diamond Tank Rental, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 

Engine Service & Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 

Lewis Casing Crews, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 

Hughes Oilfield Transportation, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 

McAfee Machine, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 

United Pump & Supply, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 

Western Repair Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 

Holly Sorrells, Realtor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 

Meister Industries, Inc. & Longhorn Custom Coating, Inc. . . . . . . . . . 169 

TYL Propane Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 

Walker Air Conditioning, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 

Cook’s Engine Service, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 

Basin Equipment Company, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 

International Derrick Service, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 

Brown Electric Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 

Trower Realtors, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 

Basin Machine & Manufacturing Company, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 

Rig Works, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 

Permian Machinery Movers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 

B-Line Filter & Supply, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 

Fran Sales & Service 

Fran Corporation 

Francene’s Fancies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 

Lenco Industrial Services, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 

JSA Architects, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 

Allbright & Associates, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 

Bridges Equipment LTD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 

Johnson Bros. Oil Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 

E. L. Farmer & Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 

Morrison Supply Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 

SPECIAL 

THANKS TO 

Blakely Construction 

Company 

Hinton Enterprises 

The Samson Corporation 

BUILDING A GREATER ECTOR COUNTY ✦ 127

BALL & SEAT 

SPECIALTIES 

COMPANY 

TEXAS 

SPECIALTY BALL 

CO. 

SPHERETEC INC. 

Ball & Seat Specialities Company is a full line 

supplier of ball and seat valves for subsurface 

oilfield pumps. To complement the company’s 

manufacturing, it also provides a reconditioning 

service. After twenty-eight years in business, the 

company has the experience and knowledge 

necessary to produce top quality products at 

a competitive price. As well as offering all of 

the standard carbide, cobalt alloy and stainless 

materials, the company also maintains an 

inventory of ceramic and other special 

application ball materials. If extreme well 

conditions are taking a toll on the balls and 

seats, Ball & Seat Specialties Company may have 

a material to solve the problem. 

Ball & Seat Specialties Company is a distributor 

for the CERBEC ® 

silicon nitride ball to 

the petroleum industry. This superior quality 

ceramic ball has shown to endure some of the 

toughest downhole environments and exceeded 

expectations as a wear resistant material. At one 

point the company was the number one UPS 

shipper by weight and number two by packages 

in Odessa. Today, the company includes seven 

full time employees and various part-time 

employees, and has a customer base of API & 

OEM pump manufacturers. 

Texas Specialty Ball Co. has manufactured 

industrial grade balls for the valve and bearing 

industry since November 1, 1995. Ron and 

Robert “Bob” Lee realized a niche market for 

specialty ball manufacturing through their 

involvement in the ball and seat business. The 

company’s first location was in an industrial 

park on Viceroy Street near West I-20. 

Bob passed away in November 2005. He had 

been involved in the ball business for over 

thirty-five years. Today the business is located 

at 3717 West Sixteenth Street in Odessa. The 

company employs eight full time employees 

and has a customer base, which includes 

OEM valve and pump manufacturers and 

ball distributors. 

SphereTec, Inc.’s owner and founder, Stella 

Lee, retired from a thirty year job from a local 

financial institution in 2004. After two years, 

she decided retirement was not for her. Having 

been a co-owner of a manufacturing company 

with her husband, Ron, she wanted to expand 

to distribution. What started off as an Internet 

sales company in 2006 has now expanded to a 

growing list of U.S. and international customers. 

The first office and warehouse were at 2462 

West I-20 Service Road in southwest Odessa, 

but moved to the sister company location at 

3717 West Sixteenth Street after new offices 

were completed in 2008. 


SphereTec, Inc., enjoys a small overhead 

with three employees due to the larger 

volume of Internet sales and its customer 

base includes ball bearing manufacturers, 

distributors, rebuilders, and various ball 

application end users including aero space 

research and development. 

Ron and Stella are both active in charitable 

and community events. Currently, Stella serves 

as a Police Athletic League Board Member, 

PAL/Crime Stoppers Annual Golf Tournament 

Committee member, and is a member of Odessa 

Chamber of Commerce. She has also served on 

the boards of a variety of organizations in the 

area including the Odessa Boys & Girls Club 

as a board member and secretary (1999-2003) 

and was named the club’s Rookie of the Year 

in 2000; Southwest 66 Credit Union board 

member and secretary from 2007 to 2010, and 

served in 1980 and 1981 as president of the 

Permian Chapter of CUs in 1980 and 1981, 

vice president in 1979, secretary in 1978, 

and secretary for TCUL Chapter Presidents 

Association in 1981. Stella was named the 

TAME (Texas Alliance for Minorities in 

Engineering) Senior High School Parent of 

the Year in 1985; and served as treasurer of the 

Jane Phillips Sorority in 1978 and 1979. 

For more information, please visit the 

companies online at www.spheretecinc.com, 

www.ballandseat.com, and www.texasball.com. 


PRECISION 

COATINGS 

Precision Coatings has been serving the oil 

and gas industry in Odessa, Texas since the 

year 2000. The company was founded in 1999 

by Joe Branco and Charlene Meister of Meister 

Industries. Joe, an immigrant from South 

Africa, purchased Charlene’s half ownership 

shares in 2000. 

As the company grew, Joe’s sons, Tony, 

Michael and daughter-in-law Natalie joined 

him from Dallas. 

The Precision Coatings Group of Companies 

is now comprised of Precision Coatings, 

Precision Pipe Coatings and Precision Lining 

Systems. Of importance is the motto used 

by each company—“to always be a major 

contributor to our client’s success”—and the 

Branco Family credits their staff of forty with 

much of their success. 

The entire Precision Coatings family 

believes in the importance of giving back to 

the community where they live 

and work. They sponsor various 

charities, children’s programs 

and sports. 

From its inception, the purpose of 

Precision Coatings was to introduce 

specialized coatings that allowed for 

great performances, savings and 

durability of components in a multitude 

of highly corrosive areas. 

Precision Coatings is today recognized 

to be a leader in coatings 

innovation, having designed, procured 

and applied coatings that not 

only serve the industry extremely 

well, they have contributed to major 

savings to the companies that consume 

those products. 


The Branco Family, which is 

comprised of Mama Branco, 

Joe, Tony, Michael, and Natalie, 

and children Caitlyn and Hayley, 

have been blessed with the 

arrival of young Ryan Branco, 

the new chairman of the board, 

in November 2010. 

As a family, the Brancos 

thank Odessa and America for 

having given them the opportunity 

to succeed and be a part of 

such a great community. 


MCKAY 

EQUIPMENT 

COMPANY 

From left to right: Kelly, Joyce, Jerry, 

and Bear McKay. 

Dedicated to producing the highest quality 

equipment in the safest and most efficient 

manner, McKay Equipment Company was 

founded by Jerry and Joyce McKay in 1978. Jerry 

was serving as a manufacturer’s representative 

and operating out of an office in his home, 

which quickly became too small as the business 

flourished and the couple found themselves 

often having to deliver much of the equipment 

themselves. A church friend sold them a parcel 

of land and McKay Equipment soon had its 

first building. 

As his company flourished, it became clear 

that Jerry’s life had long been directed toward 

this moment. He had first worked in the 

business after being discharged from the Army 

and returning to his hometown of Borger, Texas 

to work as a branch clerk for Black, Sivalls, & 

Bryson, Inc. (BS&B), a manufacturer of oilfield 

equipment worldwide. 

Jerry took every opportunity to go to the 

field and learn the technical aspects of the 

business and, within a year, was named 

the company’s branch service manager. Within 

another year, he was promoted to branch service 

manager in Houston. After eighteen more 

months, he felt the need to finish his college 

education on the G.I. Bill and moved his family 

to Amarillo, Texas. Here he worked part time as 

a barber and roofer while Joyce worked part 

time as a registered nurse, all to afford Jerry the 

ability to attend West Texas State University, 

now West Texas A&M University. Joyce recalls, 

“Those were the golden years when it was 

a special treat to get to go to McDonald’s 

for dinner.” 

In 1971 Jerry graduated with a bachelor’s 

degree in business management and BS&B 

rehired Jerry and sent him to Laurel, 

Mississippi, for a position in sales. He was later 

transferred to Odessa, Texas, to work in sales 

and service. When the branch closed in 1978, 

the idea of going into business for himself 

was conceived. 

Jerry says of those early years in the 

business, “We varied our services to keep 

money coming in by making tank grades, doing 

service work, and putting together a crew to 

manufacture field-welded tanks. With God’s 

help, we survived the 1980s.” 

The company began expanding its facility 

to manufacture its own products in the 

1990s, after it became evident that customers 

had started purchasing directly from the 

manufacturer. McKay applied for and received 

the necessary ASME Code stamp and the shop 

and buildings were added to create more space 

and specialized work areas. 

Recently, Jerry’s many years of experience 

and his wealth of technical knowledge and 

expertise in the area of oil and gas process 

equipment have culminated in teaching a 

course on that subject at UTPB. He has also 

taught classes for other business owners as part 

of their staff development program. 

Today, McKay Equipment Company sits on 

ten acres and includes an average of twentyfive 

employees serving customers major and 

independent oil companies as well as individuals 

requiring non-oilfield related custom-welded 

products, both foreign and domestic. 


Yet, the McKays recognize that their company 

remains like many small “mom and pop” 

businesses. Jerry is the president, while Joyce, 

now retired from nursing, serves as the office 

manager. Before marrying, their daughter Janie 

served on the clerical staff, while their son Kelly 

is the current shop superintendent. He has been 

associated with the business since he was a little 

boy and would often go with his father to the 

field “and loved every minute of it.” 

Jerry and Joyce agree, “Without putting 

it into statistics, let’s just say that God 

has blessed us over the years and we’ve made a 

good living for ourselves and our employees. 

And who can put a price tag on all the people 

one meets in the oil patch as vendors and 

customers who, over the years, have become 

such good friends?” 

For more information about the company, 

please visit www.mckayequipment.com. 


SELMAN & 

ASSOCIATES, 

LTD. 

Above: Tom and Juanita Selman. 

Top, right: Multiple WITSend 

(Wellsite Information Transfer 

Specification) Screens. 

Selman & Associates, Ltd. has been setting 

new standards in quality and service in and 

around Ector County for over a quarter of a century. 

The company offers many types of geological 

services, including computerized mud logging, 

digital/electronic well data acquisition, computerized 

gas monitoring, digital mud sample pictures, 

website data delivery, and geological consulting. 

Selman & Associates, Ltd. understands the varied 

needs of its clients and strives to develop the 

tools that will enable their customers to make 

important business decisions in a timely manner. 

Established as a Texas corporation in early 

1983 by Tom and Juanita Selman, Selman and 

Associates, Ltd. began providing geological 

consulting and surface logging services for 

various counties in West Texas, Southeastern 

New Mexico, and the rest of the Permian Basin. 

Since then, the company has opened branch 

offices in the Rocky Mountains and South 

Texas areas. 

Juanita holds a BA degree in business and has 

been active in well-site geological consulting 

and surface logging since 1983. Juanita 

personally oversees sales, accounting, contracts, 

and personnel. Tom holds a BS degree in 

geology and has been active in well-site 

geological consulting and surface logging 

since 1980. Tom oversees equipment rigging, 

maintenance, personnel, and is readily available 

to guarantee a smooth working relationship 

from both the office and the field. 

Having started with one unit, the company 

now operates more than thirty-eight fullyequipped 

computerized surface logging units. 

These mobile field laboratories are outfitted with 

Selman’s SLIC-7 systems (the latest in gas 

detection technology), AcquireIt (the latest in 

computerized digital logging data acquisition), 

LogIt (the latest in computerized digital 

logging data analysis), and dedicated satellite 

Internet access. These wholly owned and 

operated surface logging units are on call twentyfour 

hours a day for the convenience of clients. 

Selman & Associates, Ltd. offers a streaming 

well data solution called WITSend. 

WITSend allows clients to view graphical 

and digital representations of virtually any data 


collected at the rig by any WITS/EDR Provider 

in real-time. Data can be viewed from virtually 

anywhere with an Internet connection, 

including a home, office, or car. 

It is the mission of Selman & Associates, Ltd. 

to develop and maintain an organization which 

exhibits a positive attitude, discipline, and a 

high commitment level. The company’s goal is 

to maintain excellence and exceptional client 

satisfaction through the quality of its products 

and services and to achieve company growth 

worldwide. They will accomplish this through 

the team of highly trained, dedicated, and 

motivated professionals, and through continued 

technological research and development. 

Its mission and vision is most simply stated 

in two words—client satisfaction. Success is 

measured by how often they are asked back 

to handle another well, and repeat business 

has enabled them to flourish in the field as 

well as sustain a market share throughout the 

mid-continent states and beyond. 

Headquartered in Midland at 10114 

Liberator Lane, the company is also located in 

Corpus Christi and Rock Springs, Wyoming, 

and online at www.selmanlog.com. 


LIGHT TOWER 

RENTALS, INC. 

Light Tower Rentals, Inc., (LTR) was originally 

formed by John Avary and Ted Hogan in 

November of 1994 to rent self-contained lighting 

equipment for use at oilfield job sites. Today the 

company continues to offer superior 24/7 service 

and its quality oilfield rental equipment now 

includes light towers, generators, trailer 

packages, air compressors, pumps, drill pipe, 

downhole tools, frac tanks, flowback tanks, mud 

tanks, supervacs, and trucking. 

When they first formed the business, Ted and 

John worked out of their homes as they delivered, 

serviced, cleaned and completed all billing and 

invoicing while at the same time calling on a 

growing list of customers. They began with eight 

light towers and, though some said they would 

never rent them all, the company now includes 

150 outstanding employees in fourteen locations 

around the United States and offers over 350 light 

towers. As part of their loyal employee base, 

Mark Condry is among the top five 

generator specialists in the country, 

while Tony Barry started in the 

company as a field tech and has 

become the group’s Permian Basin 

regional sales manager. 

LTR moved into its West 

University Odessa Yard in 

October 1994. The Ozona Branch 

was opened in 1996. The company 

officially opened and expanded 

into Farmington, New Mexico, 

in 1997, and began building 

tanks in Farmington in 2000. The 

company’s first tank rental 

occurred in June 2000. 

Now headquartered at 2330 

East I-20 South Service Road in 

Odessa, LTR opened branches in 

Chico, Texas, in 2004; in Artesia, 


New Mexico, in 2006; in Cleburne, Texas, in 

2006; in Pecos, Texas, in 2007; in Athens in 2008; 

in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2008; in Oklahoma City, 

Oklahoma, in 2008; in Greenbrier, Arkansas, 

in 2008; Marshall, Texas, in 2008; in Minden, 

Louisiana, in 2008; in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 

in 2009; and in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 

2009; and a Corpus Christi branch in 2009. 

In January of 2008 the company took on 

Clairvest out of Toronto, Canada, as a fifty percent 

partner and Keith Muncy joined the company as 

its chief financial officer. A slowdown began in 

the fourth quarter of 2008 that would eventually 

bottom out in July of 2009. LTR relocated 

equipment to meet customer needs, and cut 

forty-five percent of the workforce and salaries of 

most remaining employees. 

Light Tower Rentals, Inc., has remained an 

active member of the communities it serves 

throughout its existence and annually sponsors the 

Bad Boys Blast, the Boy Scout Spring Fling, the 

West Texas Safety Training Center and Newspapers 

in Education. The company is also a proud 

supporter of the American Cancer Society, Boy 

Scouts of America, 4-H, Junior League, Project 

Graduation, Permian Basin Rehab, Rock Bottom 

House Teen Program, and Easter Seals Telethon. 

For more information about Light Tower 

Rentals, Inc., please visit the company online 

at www.lighttowerrentals.com. 


MCGUIRE 

INDUSTRIES, 

INC. 

Above: Louis and Lorraine McGuire. 

Below: McGuire Industries in 

the 1970s. 

McGuire Industries, Inc. has been a family 

owned and operated business since it was established 

in July 1969. The business was founded 

by Louis L. McGuire with the assistance from his 

wife Lorraine and their children Leroy, Weldon, 

and Tina. Louis was born in Oklahoma and 

moved to West Texas as a child. He served 

in the U. S. Army from 1951 to 1953. He worked 

in the West Texas oilfields from Roughneck to 

Toolpusher, mostly for Parker Drilling Company 

before he started McGuire Industries, Inc. 

McGuire Industries, Inc. has an impressive 

history. In the beginning the main focus of the 

business was the sale of rubber products to the 

drilling industry. The business was started in a 

small section in the back of a rented warehouse. 

Louis, his wife and children spent many days, 

nights and weekends as a family doing whatever 

tasks necessary to run the small business. The 

business grew and prospered because of Louis’ 

expertise and knowledge of the oil and gas 

drilling industry. 

At the request of many customers who relied 

on the business’ exceptional service and 

products, McGuire Industries made a major 

expansion by designing, manufacturing and 

purchasing pressure control equipment for 

rental to the oil and gas industry. Through the 

years the business continued to expand their 

inventory of rental equipment. 

McGuire Industries moved to the present 

location in August 1973 and has expanded the 

facilities by several additions to the buildings 

and purchases of adjacent land. 

Louis served this great industry and his 

employees as a dedicated and highly effective 

leader. Considering the length of time he served 

in the industry and the many contacts made 

throughout his career, Louis reached countless 

numbers of individuals whose lives have been 

positively affected by his unique dedication and 

character. He contributed extensive time, expertise 

and knowledge to the oil and gas industry. 

The McGuire family, employees, customers 

and many friends were deeply saddened on 

December 21, 2004 when Louis McGuire passed 

away. With the help of the Lord, the encouragement 

of the customers and the drive of the oilfield 

business, the family and dedicated employees 

continued to lead the great business throughout 

the highs and lows of the oilfield business. 

Over the past forty plus years the business has 

had the opportunity to serve some of the finest 

oil and gas exploration and production companies 

with a variety of equipment that meets the 

needs of the drilling and production industry. 

Today the business is mainly known as 

an equipment rental company. Its primary 

focus was and still is on pressure and gas 

control equipment for the drilling, production 

Opposite, top: The business remains 

at the same location—thirty-five 

years later. 

Opposite, bottom: Weldon and 

Lorraine McGuire, Tina Allen and 

Leroy McGuire. 


and completion of oil and gas wells. It is 

widely known in the oilfield for its expert 

knowledge, dedicated employees and well 

maintained equipment. 

The business now includes more than fifty 

highly trained and dedicated employees, and 

takes special pride in its personnel who have 

knowledge and longevity in the oil and gas 

industry. The business provides resources and 

training to make it possible for their employees 

to operate at peak efficiency in providing the 

industry needs in a safe and productive manner. 

The business has continued to be a family 

owned business with Louis’ wife Lorraine and 

their two sons Leroy and Weldon leading 

the business and being actively involved in the 

day to day operations. Tina now lives in Lake 

Jackson, Texas. She and her husband, Joe Allen, 

own a printing and promotional products business 

with locations in Houston and Clute, Texas. 

McGuire Industries’ main office is located 

at 2416 West Forty-Second Street in Odessa, 

Texas, and at www.mcguireindustries.com. 

The company has established branch offices 

in LaGrange, Jasper and Corpus Christi, Texas; 

also in Farmington, New Mexico and Rock 

Springs, Wyoming. 


SLIP SERVICE 

COMPANY 

Since its founding in 1957, Slip Service 

Company has provided equipment sales and 

service to the well servicing industry throughout 

the Southwest. The company specializes in 

the sales and repair of handling tools and is 

proud to be west Texas’ 

exclusive distributor of 

Cavins Oil Well Tools 

and Oil States Industries 

rubber products. 

With over fifty years of 

experience in the industry, 

Slip Service Company 

is proud to have established 

its reputation for 

quality repair on well 

servicing tools including 

tubing elevators, spiders, slips and rod hooks 

and stock a variety of inserts and tong dies. 

Slip Service Company is located at 3500 

Northwest Loop 338 in Odessa and online at 

www.slipservicecompany.com. 

Right: Mules were a vital necessity in 

transporting supplies and equipment 

to inaccessible oil fields, 

c. 1929-1930. 





OF THE PETROLEUM MUSEUM, BETTY 


Below: Workers were lucky if they 

could get rooms at the new 12 Oaks 

Motel in Odessa in 1927. 

COURTESY OF THE PERM. 


Above: Well-fire fighters at work 

north of Odessa, 1937. 


JOE W. GRAYBEAL SCRAPBOOK COLLECTION, 

PERMIAN BASIN PETROLEUM MUSEUM. 

Left: Patrons even slept on cots in the 

halls of Odessa’s new Elliott Hotel 

in 1929. 




TRIPPLE M OIL 

TOOL, INC. 

Since 1964, Tripple M Oil Tool, Inc., has provided 

state-of-the-art custom rubber molding to 

the oil and gas industry and today manufactures 

a complete line of oilfield equipment replacement 

parts. From expendable parts for blowout preventer 

and stripper rubbers to a full line of ram 

block and rotating head parts, Tripple M’s extensive 

line of products are built to meet or exceed 

the original equipment manufacturer's 

specifications. 

The company first began in 

1957 as a magnetic fishing tool 

company. A few years later, an 

agreement was reached to sell the 

magnets to Bowen Tools. During 

the 1960s, Tripple M operated as a 

supply company, buying and selling 

oilfield rubber products and 

soon began purchasing rubber 

molds, which were processed in 

Houston. As the business expanded 

into the early 1970s, a machine 

shop was purchased in which to 

build rubber molds “in-house” 

and development began on proprietary 

rubber formulas. 

The company became more 

competitive in the market place 

as its product line and mold additions 

continued to grow throughout 

the 1970s and into the 

early 1980s. With this expansion, 

the logistic concerns of having 

the process of rubber molding 

performed by a third party in 


Houston were becoming burdensome. In 1978 a 

rubber molding plant was constructed and all 

rubber molding was moved to the company’s 

facility in Odessa. 

As customer’s needs evolved in the field into 

the 1990s, Tripple M met this demand by doubling 

and tripling its manufacturing production, 

performing repair work on used BOP’s, and 

manufacturing BOP replacement parts. 

A major endeavor was also initiated as the 

innovative company began to learn about and 

acquire an API 16A license for building 

blowout preventers, which it received in 1995 

along with requirements for API 6A and ISO 

9001 licensing. The company continued to 

manufacture BOP’s and retained its API licenses 

and ISO registration until 2001, when the decision 

was made to discontinue manufacturing 

complete BOP units. Tripple continues to operate 

under a quality system, maintaining product 

traceability and utilizes documented quality 

control requirements on its products. 

Since 2001, Tripple M Oil Tool has undergone 

a considerable transformation. New stateof-the-art 

equipment has been purchased, new 

buildings have been acquired, expanded and 

built, more employees have been added, and 

business has increased considerably. 

A quick glance at the customer base reveals 

several recognizable names that include 

Weatherford, Schlumberger, Smith 

International, Baker, National-Oilwell, 

Hydril, Cameron, Wood Group and 

hundreds of others all of which are 

very much valued and appreciated by 

the staff of Tripple M Oil Tool. 

While customer service and product 

quality are the main focus of everyday 

at Tripple M Oil Tool, the company 

also looks to the future with continued 

quality improvement implementation 

by continued procurement of additional 

equipment and employees. In addition 

they plan to once again become licensed 

by API for the manufacture of Ram 

Blocks, Ram Packers and Top Seals. 

For more information about Tripple 

M Oil Tool, Inc., visit the company at 

8317 Andrews Highway in Odessa and 

online at www.tripplem.com. 


CEMEX 

CONSTRUCTION 

MATERIALS 

SOUTH, LLC 

CEMEX Construction Materials South, LLC 

is a company that produces, distributes, and 

markets cement, ready-mix concrete, aggregates, 

and related construction materials. With 

operations in more than fifty countries, CEMEX 

is the largest ready-mixed concrete producer in 

the world, the third largest cement producer in 

the world, and the seventh largest aggregates 

producer in the world. With over 40,000 

employees company-wide, the United States 

corporate office is located in Houston, while its 

global headquarters are in Monterrey, Mexico. 


Portland cement is natural cement formed 

by volcanic eruption and used for building in 

ancient Greece and Rome. Modern Portland 

cement was patented in 1824 by English bricklayer 

Joseph Aspdin, who named the material 

“Portland” cement after stone on the Isle of 

Portland in the United Kingdom. Concrete is 

a mixture of paste and aggregates: the paste, 

composed of Portland cement and water, coats 

the surface of the fine and coarse aggregates. 

Hydration causes this paste to harden and gain 

substantial strength, thus forming the rock-solid 

mass commonly known as concrete. Cement is 

the “glue” that holds concrete together. 

The CEMEX Odessa Plant’s history traces its 

roots to 1959 when it began operation as 

Southwestern Portland Cement and included one 

kiln, one raw mill, and one finish mill. In 1960 a 

second finish mill was added and in 1975 the plant 

was acquired by Southdown, Inc. In 1978 a second 

kiln line and raw mill were added, with a third 

finish mill added in 1985. 

In 2000, the plant included over 3,600 acres 

and was acquired by CEMEX, Inc. With 100 

employees, the plant operates 24 hours a day, 

365 days a year, and has an annual production 

capacity of 570,000 tons of cement per year. 

Its wide array of dedicated customers includes 

Halliburton, BJ Services, Vines Ready-Mix, Odessa 

Concrete, Canyon Redi Mix, Wallach Concrete, 

etc. in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico. 

The CEMEX Odessa Plant is a proud supporter 

of its community and is a member of 

Keep Odessa Beautiful. For more information 

about CEMEX, visit the historic company online 

at www.cemex.com. 


SULZER PUMPS, 

INC. 

Above: Pat Looper. 

Below: Sulzer Pumps, Inc.–Odessa 

Service Center. 

Providing innovative products and services 

to meet a variety of needs in centrifugal 

pumping, Sulzer Pumps, Inc., offers a wide 

portfolio to business partners in the oil and 

gas and hydrocarbon processing industries, 

to contractors and operators of pulp and paper 

mills, power generator plants, and to customers 

involved in water treatment and distribution, 

food, metals, and fertilizer businesses. 

At Sulzer, pumping is more than a business, 

it is a passion. Sulzer Pumps, Inc., operates the 

pump industry’s widest network of service 

centers to support our customers in the 

operation of pumping and other rotating 

equipment. Services include training, preventive 

maintenance, spare parts, replacement pumps, 

retrofits, field services, and repairs. 

While Sulzer’s corporate headquarters are 

located in Winterthur, Switzerland, the United 

States corporate office is located in Brookshire, 

Texas, with the Odessa facility being one of 

fifteen service centers in the United States. The 

company was founded on October 31, 1968, by 

Pat Looper, Pat’s father-in-law, Breece, and 

Edgar (Ed) Beason as Centriflo Pump and 

Machine. They purchased a 5,000-square-foot 

building on Eighth Street next to Sewell Ford 

and, with a handshake from Gulf Oil in Wickett, 

Texas, and John Crane Packing in Odessa, they 

had all the work they needed. Quality has 

always been the top priority, and around the 

shop, it is often said, “There is the right way, 

which is good, and there was the Pat Looper 

way, that was perfect in every way or it did not 

leave the shop.” 

Pat, Ed, and Breece hired Herb Collerd and 

they went to work 14 to 16 hours a day, 7 days 

a week to get the business off the ground. In 

1970, Pat and Ed bought Breece’s shares. 

Between the years of 1968-1974, the company 

grew to include fourteen employees and 

purchased five acres on Meadow Avenue, south 

of Sivalls Tank, and built a new 11,000-squarefoot 

facility. 

In 1980 the company added another bay to 

the building to double its size. In 1986 the office 

space was doubled and included thirty-four 

employees, having just hired the first salesman. 

This is also the year the Ed decided to retire and 

sold his shares to Pat, who was then the sole 

owner until May 2002, when he sold to Sulzer 

(Bingham Pumps). Prior to 1986, all the work 

came by referral from happy customers. The 

company did work from Pasco, Washington, to 

San Juan, Puerto Rico and from Clinton, Iowa, 

to Bakersfield, California. 

Pat and Ed also remained involved in the 

community, sponsoring youth baseball teams and 

supporting both girls and boys high school sports 

programs. They were members of the Chamber of 

Commerce and Odessa Country Club. Pat also 

served as president of American Bank and the 

Odessa Country Club. They were involved with 

March of Dimes, United Way, and Boys Club, 

as well as donating to the City of Odessa. 


Today, Sulzer’s state-of-the-art manufacturing 

facilities are located on six continents with sales 

offices, service centers and representatives in 

more than 150 countries around the globe. 

In the company’s research and development 

department, the focus is on hydraulics, 

cavitation, erosion, corrosion and mechanical 

design. Product development engineers work in 

close cooperation with customers to implement 

innovative ideas to improve products and 

processes throughout the total product lifecycle. 

The ultimate goal is to offer each customer the 

pumping solution which best suits their 

requirements. To do this, the company draws on 

its expanded range of high-quality products 

including standard types and special, tailormade 

designs. 

For more information about Sulzer Pumps, 

Inc.–Odessa Service Center, visit the company 

online at www.sulzer.com. 

Above: Two packaged pump units are 

readied for field installation. 

Bottom, left: Line boring a Ruston 

turbine housing with a Scharmann 

four-inch horizontal boring mill. 

Lands were built up prior to 

machining with appropriate material. 

Bottom, right: Special alloy overlays 

are applied using the Plasma Transfer 

Arc (PTA) technique. 


WNCO VALVE 

INTERNATIONAL 

INC. 

Created by Tommy Ward and Don Nuckols 

in July of 2003, WNCO Valve International Inc. 

combines nearly fifty years of its founders’ 

experience in the oilfield to create a company 

that now services the oil industry worldwide 

from its headquarters in Odessa. 

Reminiscing over the early years in business, 

the men recalled that their original mission 

was simple, “When we first started, we just 

wanted to have a way to support our families. 

The company we were originally working for 

had gone into bankruptcy and we needed 

a job.” 

Tommy and Don agree that even then, “we 

had the oilfield in our blood.” Tommy had been 

in the industry since 1972 and Don since 1978. 

They had both nearly lost everything at one time 

in their working careers and knew the struggles 

that lay ahead for them. Yet, today they see the 

moment as “a blessing in disguise.” 

Tommy says, “We had to find other jobs 

outside of the oilfield to support our families, 

but fortunately we were able to find jobs back in 

the oilfield.” It was at this critical moment that 

the men decided to take their chances and open 

their own machine shop. 

“We knew we were a little too old for some 

companies to hire us,” Tommy recalled of the 

experience, “so we went to a banker and laid out 

our plan. We were very lucky that he saw two 

men that were willing to work hard and long 

hours to make a business work. As we were 

blessed by God and our company grew, we were 

able to hire more people who represented 

families in our community. Now our mission is 

to grow our business with the best product we 

can manufacture and repair.” 

At the outset, Tommy and Don did all of 

the office work, sales and deliveries for their 

fledgling company. One would go out during 

the day to make sales while the other stayed 

at the office to answer the telephone. At the 

end of the day, they would remain in the office 

well into the early morning hours handwriting 

invoices “until we thought our hands were 

going to fall off.” 


Ultimately, the men were excited to finally 

hire a full-time office manager. They also had 

made many contacts throughout their long 

careers in the oilfield and their customer 

base began to grow. One of the company’s early 

and fortuitous meetings with a customer led to 

acquiring an API 7-1 license, a valuable selling 

tool which gave the company an entrance into 

the oil industry worldwide. Good employees 

were hired, and WNCO Valve was well on its 

way to becoming a leader in the industry. 

Today, WNCO Valve includes eleven employees 

with customers from across the country 

and around the world. They manufacture Kelly 

valves, Inside BOPs and Tubing valves that 

help prevent an inside diameter blowout of the 

drilling string or tubing strings, and repair 

valves, rethread drill collars and drill pipe in 

the shop. 

WNCO Valve International Inc. is located 

at 5114 North Golder in Odessa and its wide 

range of products and materials can be viewed 

online at www.wncovalve.com. 

Opposite, top: Tommy Ward and 

Don Nuckols. 

Opposite, bottom: WNCO’s 

machine shop. 

Above: Several new valves are readied 

for assembly and shipment. 

Left: Valves waiting repair. 


BB CHEMICALS, 

INC. 

BB Chemicals Inc., manufactures and 

markets a unique range of quality chemicals 

and specialty products. Various product 

divisions include production chemicals, 

pipeline chemicals, well stimulation additives, 

drilling chemicals and custom products for oil 

and gas exploration. 

Bruce Babb, president and owner of BB 

Chemicals, Inc., founded the company in 1992, 

acknowledging the need for a more diverse line 

of chemical products and services offered by a 

single company in the oil and gas industry. 

BB Chemicals manufactures and markets a 

unique range of quality chemicals and specialty 

products. Various product divisions include 

production chemicals, pipeline chemicals, well 

stimulation additives, drilling chemicals and 

custom products for oil and gas exploration. 

Maintaining its headquarters in Odessa, Texas, 

BB Chemicals does all chemical blending 

locally using the Odessa office as the main hub 

for transportation of products. BB Chemicals 

welcomes the challenges created by the 

progressing-technology and ever-changing 

environment in the oil and gas industry. 

The company’s wide variety of drilling 

products and services includes corrosion 

inhibitors, scale Inhibitors, friction reducers/ 

lubricants, Oxygen Scavenger, H2S Scavenger, 

air drilling foamers (both fresh and brine 

water), air mist corrosion inhibitors, biocides, 

defoamers, and specialty chemicals. 

Production chemical products include 

biocides, corrosion inhibitors, defoamers, 

emulsion breakers, foamers, H2S Scavenger, 

Oxygen Scavenger, friction reducers/lubricants, 

paraffin treatments, scale inhibitors, water 

clarifiers, surfactants, TBC compounds, 

pipeline corrosion inhibitors, and multipurpose 

compounds. 

BB Chemicals also provides range of services 

delivered with the highest standards in the 

industry. They include bulk and drum 

deliveries, oil well truck treating, gas and liquid 

uploading, batch treating, continuous injection 

treating, field technical service, water and oil 

treating, custom blending, “On the Fly” frac 

treating, full service analytical and development 

laboratories, and chemical test trailers. 

BB Chemicals is committed to the health and 

safety of its employees, customers, community 


and the environment. BB Chemicals stays 

current with all state and federal requirements 

for safety and training. BB Chemicals adheres 

to and participates in a variety of regulatory 

policies including OSHA 1910, the Department 

of Transportation HM 126, the Department 

of Transportation general awareness and 

formalization, and is compliant with and a 

member of the ISNetWorld Services. Every 

employee participates in monthly safety meetings 

and is required to complete HAZCOM 

training, while all drivers are CDL-licensed, 

Class A, B or C, with Hazmat endorsements. 

Initially an office of four employees, BB 

Chemicals now employs more than seventyfive 

people and has offices in Texas, Louisiana 

and Oklahoma. The company is headquartered 

in Odessa at 16107 West University Drive with 

regional offices in Texas at Odessa, Sonora, 

Oakwood, Big Spring, and Henderson; Arcadia, 

Louisiana; Alderson, Oklahoma; and online at 

www.bbchemicalinc.com. 

Above: A wooden drilling rig of the 

Standard Potash Company. The image 

was taken in 1927 ten miles south of 

Odessa. Standing next to the rig, 

left to right, J. O. Eldridge, 

S. R. McKinney, and M. Agness. 


MUSEUM, CURTIS ROGERS COLLECTION, 

JACK NOLAN PHOTOGRAPHER. 

Left: Men are laying an eighteen-inch 

pipeline between Kemper and Ector 

Stations of Humble Oil Pipe Line 

Company in 1956. 





ALBRITTON 

MACHINE, INC. 

Jackie Mitchell and Danny Albritton. 

At Albritton Machine, pumps and rotating 

equipment are the primary business and they 

understand how important they are to their 

customer’s business, as well. Since 1974 their 

experts have provided unsurpassed repair 

and service for centrifugal pumps throughout 

the country. 

The company’s founder, Jessie Daniel 

“Danny” Albritton, first began his career as a 

machinist for Meither Machine in his junior 

year (1956-57) at Odessa High School and 

opened a side business out of his garage, doing 

farm-out jobs for Meither’s. 

In 1971 he rented a building at the corner of 

West County Road and Eighty-First Street and 

hired four students from Odessa High School, 

two of whom are still with the company today. 

Only a year later, business was flourishing and 

the shop was incorporated. 

As the customer base expanded, the shop had 

to be enlarged by 1978. Continued expansions 

occurred into the early 1990s as Danny 

purchased a nearby building. Two additional 

buildings alongside the original site on West 

County Road were also purchased and added. 

By 2010 a record five additions had been made 

to the building on Eighty-First Street. 

From small, single-stage pumps to larger, 

multistage units used in high-pressure, highvolume 

environments, today’s skilled staff 

can handle all sizes and applications. The 

comprehensive understanding of the full range 

of vertical and horizontal pumps as well as 

the wide variety of pumping requirements 

ensures that customers’ business will enjoy 

quality service with minimum downtime. 

Albritton Machine can quickly inspect and 

often repair a pump on-site. Should the 

situation require more in-depth attention, 

qualified shop mechanics and machinists 

are ready to go to work repairing, rebuilding 

and replacing defective pump components. 

Following repair and reassembly, an Albritton 

field mechanic delivers the equipment to the 

customer’s location, supervises the installation, 

verifies alignment and runs a final onsite 

vibration check. Such rapid turnaround and 

the company’s finest workmanship combine 

to make Albritton Machine the best choice for 

rotating equipment repair, and complete 

customer satisfaction is guaranteed. 

Today all machine work is done on manual 

machines. Danny says with pride, “The 

employees (machinists, mechanics, and sales) 

have helped retain the name of Albritton 

Machine, Inc., by turning out quality work and 

standing behind it 100 percent. No job is too 

small, and we travel wherever needed.” 

Over the course of his career, Danny and 

his wife Jean, whom he married in 1978, have 

supported a number of sports and school 

related programs for boys and girls from 

preschool to college. He also supports several 

golf charities and his favorite pastime—race 

cars—backed by major oil companies, and 

enjoys his 4 children, 7 grandchildren, and 

3 great-grandchildren. 

For more information about Albritton 

Machine, Inc., please visit them online at 

www.albrittonmachine.com. 



DIAMOND TANK 

RENTAL, INC. 

Founded by R. M. (Marvin) Turner in 1964, 

Diamond Tank Rental, Inc., began as an oilfield 

tank rental business with six frac tanks and 

one truck. Today, still family owned, Diamond 

Tank Rental has become a leader in the oilfield 

service industry. While continuing to provide 

rental frac tanks and test tanks, the company 

has grown to supply its customers’ needs with 

a wide variety of oilfield equipment and 

transportation services. 

service trucks that include Vacuum Trucks, 

Transports, Hot Oilers and Pump Trucks up to 

600 BHP. The equipment is used to service 

customers throughout West Texas and southeastern 

New Mexico in a wide variety of applications 

from transport to pressure pumping to 

dust control. 

From their headquarters in Odessa, Texas, 

Diamond Tank Rental offer over thirty trucks 

including Heavy Haul, Haul Trucks, Winch 

Trucks, Gin Pole Trucks and Hotshots. The 

company operates a wide variety of trailers 

to accommodate the diversified needs of its 

truck fleet and floats, Drop Decks, Double 

Drops, Rolling Tailboards Trailers are just a 

few of the types utilized. A fleet of 200 plus 

rental frac tanks/pits/test tanks are currently 

in use to serve the company’s customers in 

the Permian Basin and the southeastern New 

Mexico area. 

From the Bridgeport, Texas terminal, DTR 

operates fifteen trucks from our Bridgeport 

division that include Haul Trucks, Gin Pole 

Trucks, and Winch Trucks. Additionally, 

the company offers forklift services out of 

both terminals with late model articulated 

off-road forklifts. 

Diamond Pump and Transport is also operated 

in Odessa and includes a fleet of fifty fluid 

Diamond Tank Rental, Inc., is located on a 

twenty-seven acre yard at 2655 South County 

Road West. The yard stores over 13,000 

pieces of tubular goods for many of the oil 

industries major oil companies. For additional 

information on Diamond Tank Rentals, Inc., 

please visit www.diamondtankrental.com on 

the Internet. 



ENGINE 

SERVICE & 

SUPPLY 

Left: Engine Service & Supply 

Company’s exterior of the original 

building, c. 1945. 

Right: Shop floor, c. 1945. 

Opposite, top: Current employees 

of ESSCO. 

Opposite, bottom: Group of ESSCO 

employees in their booth at the 

Permian Basin Oil Show. ESSCO has 

had a significant presence there since 

the show’s inception. 

Think 1945. Ector County and the Permian 

Basin are in the midst of a boom! There are 

drilling rigs and gas flares everywhere. Those 

drilling rigs have huge industrial engines that 

require repairs and overhauls. R. C. (Dick) 

Kramer, who had come to Odessa in 1938 from 

St. Louis, Missouri, has been in the oil patch for 

seven years—first as an engineering troubleshooter 

for Oilwell Supply Company and later as a 

Drilling Superintendent for Carl B. King Drilling 

Co. With this experience under his belt, he was 

ready to start his own business and, in 1945, start 

it he did. It was a fast paced, twenty-four hour, 

seven days a week, first class operation. 

While Engine Service was Kramer’s dream, his 

wife, Marjorie helped in a myriad of ways to 

make the dream come true. Her good business 

sense, her patience and her gracious hospitality 

were all wonderful contributions to the company. 

Here we are sixty-five years later in this family 

business, still building on Kramer’s commitment 

to hard work, integrity and the best possible 

service to our customers. Although the nature of 

the business has changed from an engine repair 

shop to an oilfield and industrial supply store, 

the name Engine Service & Supply has been 

retained because of the excellent reputation it 

bears. The company is also commonly referred 

to as ESSCO. The company does still have a shop 

in which compressor fabrication and repairs are 

done. ESSCO is an authorized service center 

for several major manufacturers. And speaking 

of manufacturers, ESSCO represents only the 

best. We have represented many of the same 

manufacturers for over fifty years. 

When Kramer took “early retirement” in 

1989 at the age of eighty-five, his son-in-law 

Vance Cobb succeeded him as president. Vance 

worked hard to achieve his goals. He was able to 

bring on both new suppliers and new customers. 

All of ESSCO’s customers, both old and 

new, are also “only the best!” Vance brought 

ESSCO into the computer age. His contributions 

in this area cannot be overstated. Vance’s 

steady hand during the “booms” and “busts” of 

the oilfield kept ESSCO in good financial shape 

as many others failed. His wife, Judy, was both 

office manager and accountant for many years. 

The Kramer’s other daughter, Kathryn, handled 

the company’s accounts receivables. 

With the third generation at ESSCO, the 

Kramer’s oldest grandson, Clint Kuhlmann, is 

vice president and general manager, and his 

brother, Matt Kuhlmann is purchasing agent, 

and they both have their goals. 

Clint summed it up very well with this quality 

statement, “We, the employees of ESSCO, are 

committed to providing quality service to our 

customers by working together to understand 

and conform to all requirements and expectations 

the first time—on time—every time.” 

They, like each of the two generations before 

them, understand what it is that truly makes 

ESSCO successful. It is the “ESSCO Family”— 

the many intelligent, hard working, dedicated, 

loyal employees—both past and present. To 

each of them, to our suppliers and to our 

customers, we say, “Thank you and God bless.” 

Fourth generation member, Rachel Kuhlmann, 

contributed to this article. 



LEWIS CASING 

CREWS, INC. 

Above: Patsy and R. P. Lewis. 

Below: The headquarters of Lewis 

Casing Crews, Inc. 

Lewis Casing Crews, Inc., was formed from 

humble beginnings in 1968 at 319 West Fiftieth 

Street. The site had no shop, only a catwalk 

with a swinging boom. Borrowing $5,000 from 

his sister-in-law, Jean Gatlin, R. P. and Patsy 

Lewis started by purchasing several casing 

tools. After working and saving, they were able 

to purchase even more tools. 

R. P. began his career in the oil patch at the 

age of seventeen, after graduating early from 

Grand Saline High School. He roughnecked 

in Denver City, even working one year on 

Christmas Day when he ate donuts for 

Christmas dinner. When he decided to start 

Lewis Casing Crews, Inc., he saw no better 

way to make more money to support his 

family. He became tired of working for others 

and decided to try to make his own casing 

company. He bought two new shirts and began 

visiting oil executives in Midland. 


Modestly beginning behind R. P. and Patsy 

Lewis’ home on West Fiftieth Street, Lewis 

Casing Company, Inc., is now located on 

Andrews Highway. They provide installation of 

casing in oil wells and lay downs and catwalk 

machines, as well as tool rentals. It has grown 

from $5,000 in the bank with ten employees 

to close to 100 employees with record revenues 

with well over hundreds of oil and drilling 

companies as current customers. Operations 

have expanded to now include property at 

8931 and 8933 Andrews Highway, with a new 

shop and truck bay built in 2009-2010. 

Patrick became the company’s current president, 

the business expanded and opened a 

branch in Hobbs, New Mexico that has been 

very successful over the past several years. 

Clockwise, starting from the top: 

R. P., Franklin and Patrick Lewis. 

Patrick Lewis and LaDonna Weaver. 

R. P. Lewis. 

R. P. died in 2003, and Patrick Lewis became 

the general manager. Frank Lewis died in 

2004. LaDonna Weaver had worked part-time 

since 1993 and she and Patrick have operated 

the business since Patsy retired in 2004. After 

Throughout the past forty-five years, Lewis 

Casing Crews, Inc., has supported thousands of 

individuals and their families. The company has 

also been extensively involved in philanthropic 

endeavors in the Permian Basin over the past 

forty-five years. These include Knights of 

Columbus, St. Mary’s Church and School, Odessa 

College, Northside Baptist Church, Midland- 

Odessa Symphony, several youth programs, and 

many other philanthropic organizations. 

For more information about Lewis Casing 

Crews, Inc., please call 432-366-8077 or 

1-800-732-5423 and ask for Patrick Lewis 

or LaDonna Weaver. 


HUGHES 

OILFIELD 

TRANSPORTATION, 

INC. 

Hughes Oilfield Transportation, Inc. (HOT) 

is dedicated to supply emergency and expedited 

transportation services to anywhere in North 

America. The company’s longtime mission is to 

be recognized as the premier supplier of services 

to the oilfield industry, being known for on-time 

performance, providing responsive service 

with courteous professionals at a fair price. As 

a team, they are committed to surpass the high 

quality reputation HOT has developed since 

its inception, and continually measures and 

improves their professional processes to ensure 

all requirements and customer expectations 

are exceeded. 

HOT’s drivers take pride in the company’s 

commitments to its objectives—service goals 

born from the family owner’s thirty-five 

plus years of onsite oilfield transportation 

experience. The Hughes driver understands 

the need for safe and reliable performance. 

Hughes trucks are a common sight in the oilfield 

when work needs to be done—on time, 

dependable, with safety our priority. The 

company is committed to safe operation, 

efficient time on location, fast response 

to customer service requests, a wide range 

of truck capability, maintaining quality 

equipment, and providing professional drivers 

who care about their load. 

Hughes has the best assortment of trucks 

available: one and three-ton flatbeds with 

poles or slickbacks, winch with rolling 

tailboard, eighteen wheelers with a 48,000 

pound weight capacity, pump trailers, 

goosenecks, and mini floats. The company 

has over fifty available trucks with a wide 

assortment of equipment configurations to 

meet the needs of any job. 

Hughes Oilfield Transportation’s headquarters 

is located at 7020 North County Road 

West and has three locations to serve customer 

needs: Permian Basin/Odessa, Oklahoma, and 

Fort Worth-Dallas. 

For more information about Hughes Oilfield 

Transportation, Inc., call the company toll-free 

at 866-882-2631. 



MCAFEE 

MACHINE, INC. 

Right: Robert D. McAfee, Delmer 

McAfee, and Danny Marshall stand 

in front of the old shop at 527 West 

Forty-Second Street, 1971. 

Below: The company’s first 

building, 1974. 

McAfee Machine, Inc., first began as Mac’s 

Engine Rebuilding, a hobby business established 

in early 1969 in the garage of owners Delmer 

and Jane McAfee. It consisted of buying and 

selling performance racing parts. By August of 

1969 the couple had purchased the business’ 

first lathe to build special parts. 

In June of 1970, Delmer left his full time 

job at Swinney Machine and started McAfee 

Machine Company full time from his home 

garage at 1305 East Forty-Ninth. One month 

later, he and his father, Robert McAfee, decided 

to collaborate and open an industrial and automotive 

machine shop. Robert had many years 

of experience working at Machotka Auto Supply 

as his place of employment, which closed their 

machine shop. Therefore, McAfee Machine 

Company purchased Machotka’s equipment and 

then leased, with the option to purchase, a 

building at 527 West Forty-Second Street. 

In March of 1971, McAfee Machine Company 

debuted its first sign, “McAfee’s Machine & 

Supply—General & Automotive Machine 

Work.” Danny Marshall, the company’s first 

employee, was hired to do work for customers 

such as Otis Engineering, Black, Sivalls & 

Bryson, Inc. and Moore Production. 

In 1972, Delmer and Robert decided to operate 

two separate shops. Delmer purchased 

Robert’s equity in the building on Forty-Second 

Street and Robert moved the automotive equipment 

to 1508 North Grant to open Mac’s 

Machine & Supply. In 1973 another employee, 

Lynn Jones was hired as a floor hand. Lynn is still 

with McAfee Machine, Inc. in the position of 

shop foreman, which he has held for thirty years. 

In the following two years, the building was 

expanded for the addition of new equipment 

that was purchased after attending the Chicago 

Machine Tool show with William “Bill” Gray, 

the vice president of Equipment Sales and 

Manufacturing Company. After attending the 

show, Delmer and Jane purchased the first computer 

controlled machine, a Burgmaster Milling 

Machine along with a Johnson rotating cut-off 

saw. These machines were also displayed and 

demonstrated at the 1974 Permian Basin Oil 

Show. McAfee Machine Company also purchased 

one of the first NC (numerically 

controlled) engine lathes in the Permian Basin 

after attending this show. 

In 1975 the company had grown enough in 

employees that participation in the Men’s 

Industrial Basketball League was possible. Other 

local businesses that joined the league included 


J & J Steel, Heap Equipment, UTPB, First 

National Bank, and Home Savings. Later the 

same year, McAfee Machine Company also participated 

in the Men’s Slow Pitch Softball League. 

By 1976 the property and existing building at 

Forty-Second Street was purchased by McAfee 

Machine Company and in 1977, was incorporated 

to become McAfee Machine, Inc., a precision 

general machine shop. In September of 1977 the 

company held an anniversary party for its 

employees at The Mansion Dinner Theater. The 

following year, the lot on the far west side of the 

building at the corner of Golder and Forty-Second 

Street was purchased for parking room for the 

numerous employees and the rear most section of 

the building was added for further expansion. 

Today, McAfee Machine, Inc., is located at 

4021 Kermit Highway, a property that was 

purchased in 1991. Having at highest count 

seventeen employees at one time, the company 

now employs eight due to the utilization 

of efficient new manufacturing technologies. 

McAfee Machine, Inc., has seen its annual sales 

grow throughout the years from as little as 

$25,000 to a yearly average of $5 million. This 

growth is largely due to the fact that McAfee 

Machine, Inc., has matured from a precision 

general machine shop into a fully capable 

manufacturing facility. At present, McAfee 

Machine, Inc., manufactures a full line of 

Wellhead and Heater Chokes along with 

Pneumatic and Mechanical Liquid Level 

Controllers, as well as Hydrostatic Tubing Testing 

Tools for the oil and gas industries, while 

continuing to manufacture items for other major 

companies. These items are produced in large 

quantities in a minimum amount of time utilizing 

the CNC production facilities that employs the 

latest in manufacturing technologies, which 

enables McAfee Machine, Inc., to offer consistent, 

quality products at an economical price. 

The company has remained family owned 

and operated, spanning three generations. 

Owner Delmer McAfee’s son, Buddy, continues 

to work at the company having started in a parttime 

position in 1975 as a floor hand and working 

his way up the ladder to Vice President of 

Production, which entails overseeing the CNC 

Production operations. 

The company has also remained closely tied 

to the community by serving actively in the 

support of Ector County Child Welfare, Permian 

Basin Girl Scouts, CASA, Rainbow Room, and 

the Odessa College Industrial Advisory Board. 

Above: The new building as it looked 

just before move-in day in July 

of 1991. 

Below: Today, McAfee Machine, Inc., 

is located at 4021 Kermit Highway. 


UNITED PUMP & 

SUPPLY, INC. 

United Pump & Supply (U. P. & S., Inc.) has 

served West Texas with modern products and 

technology for over a half century. Originally 

founded by Charles Huckeba in 1960 and 

incorporated in 1961, he sold the corporation 

to Kevin McDaniel and Clay and Sara Moore in 

October 2004 and today it remains a strong and 

viable company. The qualified staff consists of 

long-term employees who are committed to 

providing the best possible sales and service of 

oilfield products, including chemical pumps 

and parts, pressure relief valves, and liquid 

level measurement systems. 

U. P. & S., Inc. serves primarily four types 

of accounts—OEM’s (original equipment 

manufacturers), industrial accounts, supply 

stores, and end users. The company represents 

a number of manufacturers including Dresser 

Flow Solutions (Texsteam chemical pumps), 

Mercer Valve Company, Lincoln Industrial, 

Kenco Engineering, Norgren, Sharpe Valves, 

and LMI chemical pumps. 

A large customer base has been developed as 

a result of the company’s long-time presence 

in the Permian Basin. Sales and service of the 

manufacturer’s product is the most important 

ingredient for success. A large inventory 

is efficiently managed to serve the 

exclusive territory of U. P. & S., Inc. 

Kevin has worked in the oilfield parts 

industry for nearly thirty years. His 

experience ranges from parts supply to 

inventory control to sales management. 

Kevin has been with U. P. & S., Inc. for 

the past twenty-four years and currently 

serves as the manager of daily operations, 

responsible for inventory control and 

inside sales. His technical experience 

with the products enables him to understand 

the needs of the customers and 

their field application requirements. 

Kevin also serves as the quality control 

manager responsible for administering 

the policy procedures mandated by the 

National Board of Boiler and Pressure 


Vessels, which supplies 

the company’s certification 

authority to repair pressure 

relief valves. Kevin’s 

technical knowledge and 

ability allows him an easy 

rapport with industry professionals 

and customers 

alike. His expertise is a 

vital part of the pressure 

relief valve services of 

U. P. & S., Inc. 

Clay joined U. P. & S., 

Inc. after a twenty-two 

year career in the freight 

industry. Clay was the 

regional area manager for 

Consolidated Freightways. 

He was responsible for 

all operations and sales 

in the West Texas area 

including San Angelo, 

Abilene, Brownwood, and 

Midland/Odessa. 

In late June of 2003, Clay joined the staff 

of U. P. & S., Inc. He was able to combine 

the customer contacts he had developed in the 

freight industry with the customer base of 

U. P. & S., Inc. and has used his management 

and sales expertise to expand the sales efforts of 

the company to include new product lines and 

services. Clay’s sales contacts, management 

skills, and practical experience are a great asset 

to U. P. & S., Inc. 

The co-management team of Kevin and 

Clay has been successful in directing every 

aspect of the daily operations of the company 

including safety compliance, pressure relief 

valve certification policies and procedures, 

product availability, inventory control, and 

sales. The leadership Kevin and Clay provide is 

an essential part of the success of the company 

today and for the future. 

Sara joined U. P. & S., Inc. in April of 2000 

as office manager and accounting supervisor 

during Huckeba’s ownership. Her background 

includes many years of office administration 

and bookkeeping with various companies and 

an early career in banking. 

Sara’s work experience and her employment 

history with U. P. & S., Inc. prepared her for an 

ownership role in the company. In addition to 

serving as office administrator and accounting 

supervisor, Sara oversees the employee benefit 

services for the company. She also serves as 

Secretary-Treasurer of the corporation. 

For more information about U. P. & S., Inc., 

visit the company at 301 West Second Street in 

Odessa or go online to www.up-s.com. 

Below, left to right: Kevin McDaniel 

and Sara and Clay Moore. 


WESTERN 

REPAIR SERVICE 

Founded by Glen L. “Gabe” Clark on 

December 29, 1972, Western Repair Service 

repairs and rebuilds tongs, elevators, spiders, 

power units, and pickup and laydown machines 

to customers across the area. They also specialize 

in casing and laydown services, while most 

of their equipment is also for rent or sale. 

Glen first began his work in the repair business 

in a building at 1001 West 338 with no heating or 

air conditioning, completing tong repairs for his 

previous employer, Sherman Power Tong. Glen 

had originally asked for a raise from the company’s 

owner, L. B. Sherman, who told him he could 

not afford it. Glen responded that he was going 

into business for himself and wanted Sherman’s 

repair work. Sherman responded with a laugh but 

said he would give him all he could handle. 

Within six months, Glen knew he was going 

to make it. It was tough going at first, but close 

business associates came to his aid while his 

wife, Katy Jane, helped by preparing repair and 

sales tickets, often when it was so cold in the 

office that she had to wear gloves just to type 

them out. As the business flourished, Glen and 

Katy Jane scrimped and eventually bought and 

moved into the location at 2675 Kermit Highway 

and West University in 1977 and would remain 

there for the next twenty years, surviving oilfield 

busts and booms aplenty. Many of his longtime 

employees started with him, including his son 

Glen Lee Clark, Jr., and John Bronaugh. It was 

during this time that he also incorporated the 

business into Empire Tubing Tongs, Inc., DBA 

Western Repair Service. 


Glen is a firm believer that “once you gain a 

customer, you should make a friend out of 

him.” That may be why so many of his original 

customers are still with him, while many of 

their children have grown to continue that 

business partnership even today. Glen says, 

“That just makes me old.” 

In 1997 he bought and moved into the company’s 

current location at 4801 West County 

Road. Here Glen expanded the business to 

include the building of Laydown and Pickup 

machines. The company expanded greatly in 

2002 when the oilfield boom began and the 

price of oil skyrocketed to $250. At the time, 

over 1400 rigs were in operation in the Permian 

Basin area alone. Glen says those were busy 

times and everyone worked night and day and 

weekends to keep up with the demand. Glen 

remembers that he nearly worked himself to 

death, so it was during this period that many of 

his family joined him in the business. His son 

Glen Lee, Jr., his grandson-in-law Tory (Hose) 

Foote, and his daughter Linda Kay and granddaughters 

Shelly and Jeannie began working 

in the office, and they all looked forward to 

Fridays when their “Nanny” Katy Jane would 

come and eat lunch with them. 

Though the oil boom had gone bust by 2008, 

Glen expanded the acreage of his business by 

buying the adjacent land west of the main buildings 

to accommodate the ever growing stockpile 

of equipment he was building for sale or rental. 

The expansion increased his acreage to nearly 

four acres and included a little yellow house at 

2120 West Forty-Eighth Street. 

Western Repair Service had decreased by sixty 

percent in 2009, so in June, just two months shy 

of his eightieth birthday, Glen formed Gabe’s 

Casing and Laydown Service, Inc., in order for 

the equipment that Western Repair was renting to 

have someone to keep them busy. Of course, 

Glen’s innovative idea worked and both businesses 

are flourishing today. 

Though Glen had thought about retiring at 

eighty, as he approaches his eighty-first birthday 

he thinks he might wait until age ninety. “Why 

retire when you really enjoy what you’re doing,” 

Glen says. “Besides I plan to live until I’m 114.” 

And he just might do it! 


HOLLY 

SORRELLS, 

REALTOR 

Since 1977, Holly Sorrells has been selling real 

estate in Odessa and across the Permian Basin 

and West Texas. Holly is one of Odessa’s leading 

realtors, having obtained such awards through 

the Odessa Board of Realtors as “#1 Salesperson 

in Odessa.” She is a Certified Residential Broker 

and an Accredited Buyer’s Representative, and 

has been recognized as the “Best of the Permian 

Basin” Real Estate salesperson by the Odessa 

American for many years. 

Holly graduated from The University of Texas 

of the Permian Basin in 1974 in Odessa and was 

a teacher for three years in the Ector County 

Independent School District before she ventured 

into real estate to earn enough money to 

buy a dining room suite. She fell so in love with 

selling property that she opened her own business 

in 1985 and never returned to teaching. 

Holly has lived in Odessa throughout her 

adult life and is a longtime member of the Junior 

League of Odessa and Pan American Roundtable. 

She is a past member of the Board of Directors 

for the Permian Playhouse and is a member of 

the Ellen Noel Art Museum. 

Holly has always loved helping people sell their 

homes and assisting buyers to find their dream 

home. Her work ethic is surpassed 

by none, and she truly 

enjoys helping people find that 

“perfect home.” She also enjoys 

the countryside, having grown 

up on a ranch in Jayton, Texas, 

and loves selling ranches and 

commercial property. 

Customers genuinely enjoy 

working with Holly. A Christian 

who loves the Lord, she is 

a true American and is passionate 

about this great country 

called “Texas.” 

Holly Sorrells, Realtor, is 

located at 3801 East Fifty- 

Second Street in Odessa and at 

www.odessaforsale.com. 


Meister Industries was incorporated in 1969 

by its founder, Bill Meister, a man of great 

vision with tremendous technical ability and 

a strong will to succeed. And succeed he 

did, with the hands-on assistance of his wife, 

Charlene, and their son, Billy Wayne. It was a 

family business. So much so that even Ema, the 

matriarch of the family, put in her day’s work, 

helping to insure that perseverance would 

eventually be the key to the success of the 

company. Bill and Billy managed the plant and 

Charlene took the care of the bookkeeping. 

The longhorn steer the graces the emblem 

of the company has always been known as 

a strong, hearty animal, capable of surviving 

the elements of the environment. Those 

same characteristics are true of the plastic 

coatings applied at Longhorn Custom Coating, 

Inc. The same coatings applied at the plant 

have survived the elements of the oil industry 

since 1969. 

Bill was a pioneer in the field of corrosion 

protection and it was he who recognized the 

extremely scientific application of shotpeening 

as the major ingredient to a durable and 

cost effective plastic coating. The Sucker Rod 

Division was born and continues to serve the 

MEISTER INDUSTRIES, INC. & 

LONGHORN CUSTOM COATING, INC. 

oil industry with price, integrity and an 

unparalleled reputation. 

The demand for “Bill’s Coating” was so 

great that the company began to diversify 

into other products. Even sandblasting 

became an art, from delicate glass to the 

largest pieces of equipment. 

With the deaths of Bill and Billy, 

Charlene was left to take over the 

reins and the business continued to 

grow at an unprecedented pace. 

Customers say that she is an even 

greater perfectionist than were Bill and 

Billy, and her staff and all who come in 

contact with her consider her a fair and 

kind person. 

After Billy’s death, his son, Billy 

Meister, Jr., (B. J.) was left at the young 

age of 25 to run the 22-section ranch 

with 650 head of cattle, as well as the 

family business, Meister Industries & 

Longhorn Custom Coating. B. J. and his 

wife, Jennifer, drive two hours each day 

from the ranch to Odessa to run the 

plants and offices, while Jennifer also 

home schools their daughter, Laurynn. 

For more information, please visit 

www.longhorncustomcoating.com. 

Above: The office of Meister Industries 

in Odessa. 

Below: Billy Meister. 


TYL PROPANE 

INC. 

Right: Norman and Debi Ward. 

Originally founded in 1946 by J. D. and Ruby 

Ward, TYL Propane Inc. is a propane retailer 

serving residential and commercial properties, as 

well as cylinder fills, to customers across the area. 

Though J. D. began the business working on his 

own with one bobtail to make propane deliveries 

throughout the Permian Basin area, his company 

soon flourished and he was joined by his brother, 

Sircy, and a brother-in-law, Ed Stone. 

After Sircy joined him in the work, the men 

would often leave early each morning to deliver 

propane and would remain on the road for several 

days as they added new customers from the 

surrounding communities. Their first bobtails 

held twelve hundred gallons, at half-cent per 

gallon, so J. D. set the customer’s price at five 

cents per gallon. Customers and their families 

were always grateful for the low cost fuel and 

J. D.’s dependability, though one early customer’s 

bill once reached $5,000—a sum the company 

was never able to collect. 

As the company continued to grow, so did 

the Ward family. J. D. and Ruby enjoyed raising 

their four children—James, Henry, Norman, 

and Reba—in the area, and all three of their 

sons went to work in the family business. 

When J. D. decided to move the business out 

of the city limits to his yard at 4817 Andrews 

Highway, the business “really began to grow.” More 

bobtails and several transports were purchased to 

haul the gas to retail locations such as Del Rio, 

Uvalde, Carrizo Springs, Eagle Pass, Anthony, 

Balmorhea, and Sanderson. The company also 

began to service hot mix plants and went into the 

wholesale pipeline business. 

The Wards remained tireless in their support of 

the community throughout their lives. J. D. was a 

member of the Board of Directors of the National 

Bank of Odessa and also served as a deacon at 

Belmont Baptist Church from the 1950s until 

his passing in 1987. James, Henry and Norman 

continued to direct the business after their father’s 

retirement, and divided it in 1990. 

Today, Norman and his wife Debi maintain 

the Odessa retail and the name, now TYL 

Propane Inc. at 4004 West County Road and 

continue a father’s historic legacy to customers 

across the Permian Basin. 


WALKER AIR 

CONDITIONING, 

LLC 

Founded with one truck and the dreams of 

Troy Walker and his father Robert, Walker Air 

Conditioning debuted in Odessa on August 1, 

2001. Troy had originally lost his job when 

his former employer was bought out, however 

dedicated customers soon began 

calling him to help with them their 

heating and air conditioning needs. 

Troy and Robert formed their new 

company out of Troy’s garage and 

made for themselves one simple 

goal—“offer dependable work for 

good prices.” 

As news of the company’s outstanding 

service and expertise spread 

throughout the community, their 

workload increased and Troy and 

Robert hired more employees and 

moved the company into its present 

location at 5402 Andrew Highway in 

Odessa in January of 2003. With an 

average annual growth of thirty percent, 

today Walker Air Conditioning 

grosses over $2 million and includes 

fifteen employees completing residential 

and commercial installation 

of heating and air conditioning needs 

of every size and kind. 

The company is a proud supporter of many 

local sports teams. Troy says, “If kids are involved, 

we are involved.” 

Visit Walker Air Conditioning, LLC online at 

www.walkerairconditioning.com. 


COOK’S ENGINE 

SERVICE, INC. 

Above: Joe Cook in the shop. 

Below: Joe and Todd Cook. 

Joe Cook worked in the oil field on drilling 

rigs and roustabouts services before starting 

Cooks Engine Service, Inc. He took care of his 

mother and father as they got older until their 

deaths. Joe had three children; two daughters 

and one son. Joe’s oldest daughter passed away 

in 2009 and it was a great loss. 

In 1968, Joe decided to start his own business 

working out of his home garage on Ajax 

and other brands of oil field engines and 

pumps. From this he developed into a full 

oilfield engine service business hence Cook’s 

Engine Service, Inc., was created, which he 

has built into a company known all over the 

United States and other countries such as 

Canada and Venezuela. 

Joe seemed to have a natural talent and 

knowledge of oil field engines and pumps and 

decided to start out on his own. He was finally 

able to find a small shop located at 2506 Van 

Street in Odessa. In 1980, Joe built his own 

shop and office at 2656 West County Road and 

has been in the same location for thirty years. 

Cook’s Engine Service, Inc., is a distributor 

for Arrow parts and does repairs in the field and 

in the shop on all brands of oil field engines 

and pumps. They purchase used equipment and 

refurbish Ajax and other brands of engines 

and pumps to sell. 

Cook’s Engine Service, Inc., has grown considerably 

since 1968 and now includes a 

customer base of over 200. 

Cook’s Engine Service, Inc., 

has been through many 

Ector County oil booms, and 

through many Ector County 

oil downfalls. He has managed 

to stay in business during 

the good and the bad 

economic times and keep 

people employed. 

Joe’s father, Louis Cook, 

helped Joe for many years 

before passing away in 1995. 

He brought his son Todd 

into the business at the age 

of sixteen and he is now vice 

president of Cook’s Engine 

Service, Inc. 

Its impact on the community 

is most evident through 

the creation of a long time business that has 

been employing local Ector County people, 

paying a large tax base, and donating to various 

charities and projects over the years. 

Cook’s Engine Service, Inc., is a member of 

the Odessa Chamber of Commerce and the 

National Business Association. 


Founded in 1986 by Scott Dennis, Basin 

Equipment Company, Inc. supplies drilling rigs 

and service companies with their everyday needs. 

Six months after opening the business, 

Dennis worried that the slow pace of the 

drilling industry was going to put him out 

of business. Just in time, his first big break 

came from Wilbros Drilling and Cactus 

Drilling. However, both companies later 

decided to close their operations in Odessa. 

Starting over, little by little Scott began picking 

up small accounts. 

Conditions from 1986 to1992 were slim in 

the drilling end of the oil patch. Dennis worked 

to get two or three of each company’s rigs that 

were running in hopes that his outstanding 

service would win the rest of the rigs. It 

worked, and eventually he found himself 

running all the rigs for some contractors. Most 

of this was accomplished by Scott or his 

assistant, George McKinzey, driving day and 

night to rigs. George worked with Scott until his 

retirement in 1999. 

During those early years, as the men built 

their inventory, months would go by in which 

Dennis and McKinzey never saw a paycheck. 

Dennis recalls that many times a prayer was all 

they had to hang on to. 

Dennis’s reputation was built early on as a 

hard worker. In the early years when the oil 

patch was a little wilder, it was customary to 

visit the local bar and drink until 2:00 a.m. and 

then be up again at 4:00 a.m. with a list of rigs 

and supplies to be delivered. He and McKinzey 

managed to get the job done, day or night, and 

customers soon realized they could call on him 

and be assured that the supplies would be at the 

rig on time. 

Dennis says, “To this day, it’s service first. 

That is why Basin Equipment Company, Inc. is 

so successful.” 

In 1995, business had picked up enough 

that Dennis hired a few extra people to help. 

Never hiring a full-time salesman, Scott chose 

to sell himself and slowly built enough 

customers that today, there are 10 employees 

servicing between 65 to 80 rigs. Basin 

Equipment Company, Inc. services more than 

any other supply store in the Permian Basin, 

proud to be the only “rig only supply store” in 

the area. 

The first years were spent in a rented office 

space of about five hundred square feet. Dennis 

eventually purchased the twelve-thousandsquare-foot 

building the business is located in 

today at 3746 Kermit Highway in Odessa. 

Dennis was proud to have his son join the 

company after he left Texas Tech in 2005. He 

has high hopes that one day he can hand the 

reigns of Basin Equipment Company, Inc. over 

to him. 

BASIN 

EQUIPMENT 

COMPANY, INC. 

Scott Dennis. 


Top: IDS Headquarters in 

Odessa, 2010. 

INTERNATIONAL DERRICK SERVICE, LLC 

Above: Anson and Sherron Parker. 

For nearly a decade, 

International Derrick Service, 

LLC has furnished domestic 

and international oil industry 

with the engineering, design 

and manufacturing of oilfield 

mast and substructures; structural 

inspection of oilfield 

structures; mast and substructure 

certification and recertification; 

technical services and 

support, as well as a worldwide 

field service and onsite 

repair or at its many worldwide 

locations. The company 

provides an alternative to 

major rig builders with its 

dedicated vision of not 

becoming the largest, but 

remaining “the best in service 

and product.” 

The company was created by Anson and 

Sherron Parker in 2003 to provide new and 

refurbished equipment to the oilfield. Since 

1974, Anson has been a true testament to 

American ingenuity in his designs to meet the 

great new demands for highly mobile drilling. 

International Derrick Service is a truly family 

owned and operated company as sons David 

and Scott Parker work as structural consultants 

and daughters Jennifer Parker and Kabra 

Simmons facilitate HR and API requirements. 

Anson’s career in the oilfield included his 

company K.A.D.S. Derrick Service founded in 

1974 in Oklahoma. The K.A.D.S. received its first 

American Petroleum Institute (API) Approval 

Code under Specification 4D, and continues to 

hold its API Approval under 4F. Anson was always 

dedicated to providing quality service to drilling 

contractors and equipment. 

Anson built “The Super Single,” a 1,000 horsepower 

rig for M. D. Cowan, Inc., in Odessa. It 

was highly successful and ideally suited for the 

unconventional gas plays and sub 12,000 foot 

drilling projects for which this rig was designed. 

I.D.S. actually designed and fabricated the first 

mast ever built in the UAE Dubai. 

International Derrick Service took on the 

task of designing a derrick and sub to pick up 

and lay down pipe like a single, rack stands like 

a triple, and be compact and fast moving for Ray 

Brazzel of Bandera Drilling. 

I.D.S. also has several features specifically 

geared for the mountainous areas in which they 

operate. The rigs are designed to fulfill the 

mobility and operation challenges of drilling in 

all regions, and include rig skidding systems for 

pad drilling applications as well as rigs designed 

and built specifically for geothermal drilling. 

I.D.S.’s main office and manufacturing is 

located at 301 West Fiftieth Street in Odessa 

while its rig-up yard and storage facility is 

located at 301 Yukon. I.D.S. has thirty-eight 

full time employees, annual revenue of over 

$9 million and a customer base of both 

domestic and international companies. 

With the death of Anson in 2009, the Parker 

family has continued to surge ahead with 

meeting and exceeding their customer’s 

expectation, and international projects continue 

in Columbia, Peru, Ecuador and Egypt. 

I.D.S. had developed and donated a 

Hydraulic Battering Ram for the Odessa Police 

Department. JAP Hydraulic Battering Ram 

enables law enforcement officers to remain in 

the protective covering of an armored vehicle as 

they forcibly enter a building. The JAP 

Hydraulic Battering Ram is also helpful in 

accessing the second floor of a building, 

relocating a vehicle, or assisting with other 

procedures commonly performed by officers in 

these intense situations. 

For more information about International 

Derrick Service, visit the company online at 

www.ids-usa.us. 


Brown Electric Company was started in 

December 1947 by Glenn O. and Lucille Brown. 

Initially working out of a 1939 Lincoln Zephyr 

and his home on the west side of Odessa, Glenn 

did service work and soon started wiring 

houses. What began as a “one-man” operation 

steadily grew in size and reputation, for Glenn 

knew he was not just building a business, he 

was building his community. 

Glenn was committed to nothing less than 

excellence for his customers and made sure that 

as his company grew that commitment never 

wavered. Prospering in the bustling West Texas 

economy, Brown Electric acquired several 

employees and by 1950 had many commercial 

projects. In 1952 the company moved into 

larger quarters at 2127 Kermit Highway. 

In 1953, Brown Electric Company completed 

an addition to Medical Center Hospital, the 

largest commercial project to that date. On 

March 1, 1957, Brown Electric Company was 

incorporated in Texas, by this time doing 

commercial projects almost exclusively. 

During the 1960s and 1970s, Brown Electric 

Company had achieved a prominent position 

in the West Texas construction industry, with an 

enviable reputation for quality of work and 

dependable service. 

Among the major projects of this period was 

the Sewell Ford building and the National Bank 

of Odessa office building (now Compass Bank). 

The company moved into its present location 

in 1978 at 2525 North Jackson. In 1981, Glenn 

R. Brown, a professional engineer, joined the 

company, which about this time also started 

installing computer cabling and telecommunications 

wiring. 

Today, Brown Electric Company is known 

throughout West Texas for quality construction 

and dependable service. The company specializes 

in electrical construction of commercial 

buildings, including schools, churches, offices, 

retail stores, and government buildings. With 

decades of expertise in the field, the company 

also provides a variety of telecommunications 

cabling, installing data wiring, including coax, 

twinax, fiber, and structured, category 5 systems. 

They also provide servicing of all types of electrical 

installations, commercial, industrial 

and even residential. With projects ranging 

from $500 to $500,000, Brown Electric 

Company will install a fixture to accent a 

customer’s favorite painting in their living 

room, re-lamp a parking lot, or design and 

install a whole new lighting system. 

Brown Electric Company is located at 

2525 North Jackson in Odessa and online 

at www.brownelectricco.com. 

BROWN 

ELECTRIC 

COMPANY 

Bottom, left: Glenn Brown. 


TROWER 

REALTORS, INC. 

Above: F. Virgil Trower. 

Trower Realtors, Inc. is a community based 

real estate firm providing residential sales, 

property management, commercial sales and 

leasing, construction and development, and 

in-house mortgages by Envoy Mortgage. 

Originally co-owned with Frances Goodwin, 

Trower Realty, Inc. was founded in 1973 at 

1412 East Eighth Street in Odessa as Goodwin/ 

Trower Realtors. Virgil and Joyce Trower 

purchased Frances’ half of the business in 

1975 and later bought a Century 21 franchise 

to become Century 21—Trower Realtors. 

The Trowers’ broke away from Century 21 in 

1983 and remains Trower Realtors, Inc. today. 

Through nearly four decades, the company 

has seen its share of rises and falls in the 

industry, struggling first with the opening of 

the business and finally seeing a boom in 

1978-1979, only to be followed by the oil 

bust in the mid-1980s, causing the housing 

market to suffer. During that time, Trower 

listed many difficult foreclosure listings and 

business relocations. At one time during those 

years, the company had over 500 such listings, 

compared to the 350 that MLS has today. 

A family business, Trower Realtors, Inc. 

has remained a family business throughout 

its existences, including all of Virgil and 

Joyce’s children, as well as the twenty-five 

agents on staff who are just like family. 

Several agents have been with the company 

over twenty years. 

Trower Realtors, Inc. is a proud supporter of 

the communities it serves and has been 

involved with the FHA Loan Limits Task Force, 

which helped to raise Odessa’s FHA loan 

limits so that the home builders could start 

building homes again. The company has also 

been instrumental in the development of 

several new subdivisions in town. 

Virgil remains active in several other 

organizations in Odessa that are dedicated 

to city improvements, as well MCH & Texas 

Tech Board, Odessa Board of Realtors, Ector 

County Appraisal District, Optimist Club, 

Human Society, and the Odessa Industrial 

Development Committee. 

For more information about Trower Realtors, 

Inc., please visit the company online at 

www.trowerrealtors.com. 


For over a half century, Basin Machine & 

Manufacturing Company, Inc. has been a 

leading manufacturer of reciprocating pumps 

and centrifugal pumps making it the oldest 

singly owned machine and manufacturing shop 

in Odessa, Texas. Founded by A. W. Beeman in 

February of 1954, Basin Machine began inside 

a small rented building when Beeman had the 

opportunity to build and sell parts for down 

hole drilling operations. His first employee was 

his son, H. D., who worked part-time through 

high school and is the acting president of the 

company today. 

During the first three years of business, the 

Beemans were successful though collections 

were difficult. A large shop building was constructed 

in 1957. From 1958 to 1961 there was 

a gradual slow-down in the oilfield industry so 

the pump business was formed in 1964 and continues 

to the present day. The company started a 

foundry in 1971 to pour bronze and stainless 

steel centrifugal castings for in-house use and 

outside sales. Later, the company also acquired a 

patent and began manufacturing a hydraulic 

operated pipe handling machine for drilling rigs. 

Today, Basin Machine & Manufacturing 

Company offers a wide variety of positive 

displacement pumps, reciprocating pumps, 

plunger pumps, piston pumps, and diaphragm 

pumps for a wide range of industry applications 

BASIN MACHINE & 

MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC. 

including oil and gas production. From individual 

pumps to complete systems and custom 

engineered packages, units are available to 

meet the needs and requirement of customers 

throughout the industry. 

In addition to a wide range of pumps, a 

complete line of spare pump parts are 

available for National Pumps, Oilwell Pumps, 

Wheatley Gaso, Gardner Denver, Emsco, and 

many more. 

Basin Machine & Manufacturing Company, 

Inc. is located at 501 Hillcrest in Odessa and 

online at www.basinmachine.com. 


RIG WORKS, 

INC. 

Rig Works, Inc., is committed to 

consistently providing our customers 

with products and services of the 

highest standard for quality in the oil, 

gas and service industry. 

Since 2005, Rig Works, Inc., owned by J. W. 

and Jennifer Brake, has remained a progressive 

locally owned Texas company offering quality 

well-servicing new rig manufacturing, rig repair 

and refurbishing in the oil-rich Permian Basin of 

West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Rig 

Works also sells its rigs all over the world with rigs 

currently operating in ten states as well as Canada, 

South America, Russia and the Middle East. 

J. W. Brake has seen the oil industry rise to 

$147 oil and then plunge to about $40 a barrel. 

The company began by purchasing 3 rigs from 

Michigan to refurbish which lead into the 

manufacturing of new rigs. J. W. only delivered 

five rigs one year when the U. S. economy fell 

in 2008. Rig Works is continually developing 

new technologies through a state-of-the-art, 

common sense approach in designing new well 

servicing rigs with new and innovative ideas. 

Rig Works, Inc., is located in a 100,000 

square foot facility in Odessa, where it features 

a unique design in well servicing drawworks. 

The patented, professionally designed compact 

drawworks offer superior maintenance capabilities, 

longevity and safety. Rig Works is licensed 

and registered by API for API-4F, ISO 900I: 

2008, API-QI, ISO/TS 2900I. They currently 

manufacture Mustang 600 HD, 550, 400, 250 

plus the California rig that meets all current 

EPA and CAL transmission regulations in a 

compact 400 HD package. 

On August 5, 2011, Rig Works, Inc., rolled 

out its 100th newly manufactured well servicing 

rig purchased by Snyder, Texas, based 

Globe Energy Services, LLC. This rig is Globe 

Energy’s first of at least 24 rigs and may be 

one of the largest rig manufacturing orders 

placed from one private company to another 

private company in the United States. J. W. 

stated, “We didn’t have any idea about 100 rigs 

when our first rig was delivered to Exxcel Well 

Service when we first started; we just went 

where the industry led us”. 

Rig Works continues to flourish in the industry 

because of its focus upon success in the three 

areas—experience, products, and personnel. 

And whatever you do whether in word or 

deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving 

thanks to God the Father through Him. 

—Colossians 3:17 

Rig Works, Inc., is located on 2310 Stevens Road 

in Odessa and online at www.Rig-Works.com. 


Permian Machinery Movers opened its doors 

on February 16, 1981 to provide its customers 

not only the sale, rental and service of forklifts, 

but also a promise to “make your life easy.” 

The economy was good in 1981, so Ramon J. 

Chavez and his son Robert decided to start 

the business. They began moving machinery 

for machine shops with their forklifts and the 

customers liked the forklifts so much they 

actually offered to buy them outright. 

Throughout the formative years of their 

company, the men were encouraged and supported 

by several key individuals including 

German Ledezma, Les Nielson, Kyoei Corp, 

Mike Wallace and Nonnie Smith. Ramon’s son 

Roy and his daughter Rosemary later joined the 

business, as well. 

The company has a fully stocked parts 

department and a capable repair team to fix any 

make or model. They also have field mechanics 

to service and repair your machine at your 

location, as well as providing OSHA-approved 

training for the safe operation of forklifts. 

PERMIAN 

MACHINERY 

MOVERS 

Above and middle: Ramon J. Chavez 

(left) and his son, Robert. 

In 1994 the family’s dream for the flourishing 

company was realized with the grand opening of 

their new office and shop in Odessa. Ramon and 

Robert recall, “We cried, prayed, and thanked 

God and then…back to work.” With just three 

forklifts when they first opened in Odessa, they 

immediately began saving for new inventory. 

Now with over three decades behind them, 

Permian Machinery Movers owns 500 forklifts 

and employs sixty employees to keep them 

running. The company takes great pride in 

the fact that it has never had to lay off any 

employees due to the economy. 

The main office of Permian Machinery 

Movers is located at 2200 West I-20 

in Odessa, with secondary locations at 

9270 Gateway East in El Paso, and at 

7450 FM 1346 in San Antonio. 

Permian Machinery Movers is a proud 

member of the Odessa Chamber of 

Commerce, the Permian Basin Mission 

Center, and the First Baptist Church 


For more information about Permian 

Machinery Movers, please visit them online at 

www.permianmachineryinc.com. 


B-LINE FILTER & 

SUPPLY, INC. 

B-Line Filter & Supply, Inc. has been a major 

supplier of fleet and industrial filtration products 

and tools, automotive parts, and general 

MRO products to West Texas and U.S. markets 

for over thirty years. 

Opened in October of 1973 by owner and 

president of the company, Omer Bishop, B-Line 

Filter & Supply, Inc. had nearly closed its 

doors in April of 1974 when, just in the nick 

of time, two purchase orders were received 

from a major drilling company that kept the 

doors open. 

Omer had sold a Texaco, Inc. distributorship 

and was looking for a new venture. Along with 

his son Gary Bishop, B-Line Filter & Supply, 

Inc. was started. Despite the depressed oil 

prices and tough economic conditions in the 

Permian Basin, the company has been fortunate 

to supply several resellers and other major 

oil companies down through the years that 

have been a part of their 5,000 plus consistent 

customer base. 

The company’s high volume allows it to be 

very competitive and enables it to fully benefit 

from the resources of the manufacturers it 

represents. For several years, B-Line has been 

one of the top five distributors in the nation 

for Baldwin Filters, Champion Spark Plug, 

and many others. The company prides itself 

in the ability to provide innovative business 

solutions to its customers and to rapidly adapt 

its vast inventory to meet the needs of the most 

diverse customer. 

With several locations and over ninety 

employees to serve its customers, B-Line Filter 

& Supply, Inc. serves the Permian Basin at 1509 

West Second in Odessa with a B-Line Lube 

located just next door. The company is also 

located at B-Line Lube in Sweetwater at I-20 

and in Brookshire at I-10. 

B-Line Filter & Supply, Inc. has had too 

many name-worthy employees to mention 

them all, but Otto Bicknell was the first 

employee to work in sales. 

Omer is a proud supporter of many 

community projects and is a member of the 

chamber of commerce and supports the local 

schools, United Way, and a variety of other 

charitable organizations. 

For more information about B-Line Filter 

& Supply, Inc., visit the company online at 

www.blinefilter.com. 


On December 18, 1976, Fran and Elden 

Reedy started Fran Sales & Service at the 

couple’s kitchen table and included a vice, 

several hand tools, and two cans of cleaner. 

Loffland Brothers Drilling and Chock’s, Inc. Well 

Servicing were the company’s first customers. 

Business began to grow after the Reedy’s received 

a call from Harold Bennett of Dallas, Texas. 

Harold manufactured transmission shifters and 

asked the company to be his distributor. After 

receiving two complete units of each different 

transmission shifter, the business flourished and 

was moved from the kitchen to the garage. 

In 1978 the business relocated to 3805 West 

County Road and became a WABCO Distributor 

(now Rexroth), as well as a Versa Valve subdistributor. 

At that time, Fran Sales & Service 

operated a supply store and a repair service 

center for pneumatic valves and cylinders for 

well-servicing, drilling and gas plants. 

In 1979, Fran Sales & Service was incorporated 

and became Fran Corporation. A year 

later, a machine shop was added. The couple’s 

son, Elden, Jr., served as the company’s machinist 

and Charles Boucher joined 

the machine shop as a mill hand. 

The boom was on and Fran, as 

president, hired many employees 

to fill the needs of the thriving 

company. Among those hired 

were Jessie Taber, Vance Gilliam, 

and George Poston. The Reedy’s 

three children, Elden, Jr., Olen 

and D. Ellen joined the workforce. 

In 1981 brought with it the 

bust and consequential loss of 

employees, and the family struggled 

and worked long hours. 

Fran worked 16 to 18 hour days, 

7 days a week, to save the corporation 

and recalls, “By the grace 

of God, I did it!” 

In 1984 and 1985 the children 

left for other jobs in order 

to keep the doors open. The only 

remaining employee at that 

point was Charles Boucher. Little 

by little, things began to come 

around and, in 1986, the business 

moved to its present location 

at 3730 Kermit Highway. 

Elden, Sr., passed away in 2001. To keep her 

company after Elden’s death, Fran befriended 

Francene, an apricot-colored, miniature toy 

poodle. Francene became a wonderful “buddy” 

to Fran and Charles, until Charles’ death in 

2008. In the fall of 2009, Elden, Jr., and his 

wife, Debbie, returned to the company to work 

evenings and Saturdays. 

In 2003 a dream became reality when Fran 

bought a Bernina embroidery and began to 

make beautifully intricate fabric designs. She 

remodeled the front of Fran Sales & Service 

and opened Francene’s Fancies–Gifts of Elegance 

on November 30, 2004, with a Christmas 

Open House. 

Today, the shop carries the finest in china, 

serving pieces to grace the table, candles, 

children’s and baby clothes, stationary and 

home accessories, while Francene, the poodle, 

enjoys greeting customers upon their arrival at 

the store. 

“With the help of Debbie Reedy, we have 

been called ‘From Grease to Lace’ by an article 

in Midland Lifestyles magazine,” says Fran. 

FRAN SALES & 

SERVICE 

FRAN 

CORPORATION 

FRANCENE’S 

FANCIES 

A steel rotary rig in South Texas in 

the 1950s. 




LENCO 

INDUSTRIAL 

SERVICES, INC. 

Offering the best environmentally safe 

products while delivering accurate, friendly 

customer service has long been the driving 

focus behind Lenco Industrial Services, Inc., 

and its founder Len Redmon. 

For many years, Len had dreamed of owning 

her own company and that dream finally 

became a reality in May of 2002. 

Death March, as a defender of Bataan and 

Corrigedor, and was a prisoner of war held by 

the Japanese for three and a half years. 

Upon his return to Ector County, Lynn began 

a twenty-eight year career as a fireman—a role 

in which his daughter Len realized her strong 

work ethic and focused determination. Her parents’ 

unwavering encouragement and friendship 

sustained Len through the formative 

years of her company’s growth. 

Len writes of the experience, in the 

early days, 

Len recalls, 

I had worked for many years as an employee 

and had always wanted to have my own business. 

I truly thought it was something that was impossible 

until I had an unusual conversation with a 

dear friend, Ted Lawson. His suggestion to me 

was to find a niche and fill it. He was the person 

to point me in the direction I needed to go. God 

rest his soul—he pointed several in the direction 

of being in business for themselves. He was the 

initial investor in my business, as well as so many 

others in the area, and I was elated to return that 

investment to him just prior to his passing due to 

a massive brain tumor. What a guy! 

From the beginning, friends such as Charlie 

Kirkpatrick, Beth Lyn Kirkpatrick, and Ted 

Lawson gave great support to Len in her dreams 

for the future of the business. Len’s parents, 

Maxine and Lyndal “Lynn” B. Preslar, were especially 

encouraging through their examples 

of hard work and faithful service. Maxine served 

as the secretary of the principal at Austin 

Elementary in the Ector County Independent 

School District for twenty-eight years. Lynn 

served as a United States Marine in the Bataan 

…things were very ‘over-engineered’ 

and we often worked 18 to 20 hours a day 

manufacturing the wastewater treatment 

systems, delivering them, servicing them, 

keeping the growing list of customers 

happy, the bank happy, doing the bookkeeping, 

etc. And it was all done with no 

shop, one used truck, a hope and a prayer. 

After the first year, the company included 

18 systems, a new truck and the foundation 

for a new shop…life was good. 

Today, Lenco Industrial Services, Inc., serves as 

the parent company for a portable wastewater 

treatment rental business that primarily services 

the oil industry. The Industrial Parts Division is an 

entity of the parent company that specializes in 

Industrial Parts for the Gas Plants in West Texas 

and Southern New Mexico. Chem-Solv is an entity 

of the parent company and is a totally green 

chemical that is manufactured locally which has 

products for all. Their chemicals cover everything 

from the home to the industrial plant to the 

drilling rig to the wastewater treatment plant. 

Lenco has also grown to include from 12 

to 19 full time employees, 76 systems, and 

7 trucks. The company’s headquarters have 

expanded from 500 square feet to 1800 square 

feet, while its shop has grown from 16 x 20 to 

16 x 40. They have also purchased an additional 

four acres of land for future growth. 

Len remains an active member of New Life 

Church and serves the community as a member 

of the Ector County Children’s Service Board, the 

CASA Board and the Permian Basin Fair Board. 

Lenco Industrial Services, Inc., is located 

at 16956 North Sunflower Avenue, Suite B in 

Gardendale, and www.lencoindustrialservices.com. 


Striving to achieve the vision of its clients for 

nearly three decades, JSA Architects, Inc., continues 

to provide architectural and coordinated 

engineering services through quality design and 

construction management for governmental, 

educational, medical, religious, community, and 

commercial building construction projects. 

The firm has been recognized for its unique 

approach to architectural design and construction 

since its founding as Johnson Seefeldt 

Architects, Inc., by Larry Johnson and Jack 

Seefeldt in 1985. Combining many years of 

direct hands-on experience within a major commercial 

construction company in Odessa, the 

men began the company as a simple partnership 

in a two room space. The firm grew into a 

corporation and welcomed its first major client, 

the Ector County Independent School District. 

This began a strong history of successful 

projects for the school district, which included 

major renovations and additions to Odessa High 

School, Bowie Junior High School, and most of 

the district’s elementary schools. 

Ector County became the firm’s second major 

client as JSA was influential in encouraging the 

demolition of the dilapidated barns at the Ector 

County Coliseum grounds and replacing them 

with new structures to house various county 

events. The initial project led to a new roofing 

system and mechanical cooling and heating 

system, new restrooms, lobby expansions, 

concourse renovations and a substantially 

improved entrance and pedestrian circulation 

pattern for the main Coliseum and the related 

grounds. The work reinvented the Coliseum as 

a “new face for the community” and led to JSA’s 

design of the Ector County Administration 

Building Annex and the Ector County Law 

Enforcement Center. 

Maintaining direct involvement in the various 

projects of their company, Larry and Jack have 

experienced several economic uncertainties during 

the West Texas oil busts; however, their deep faith 

in God has sustained their business sense and 

earthly purposes. 

Throughout the years, JSA has worked with 

many outstanding clients, including churches of 

various denominations and ecclesiastical affiliations, 

Odessa College, the University of Texas for 

the Permian Basin, Medical Center Hospital and 

Odessa Regional Medical Center; and each has 

helped make providing architectural services 

both challenging and rewarding for the company. 

Milestones for JSA include expanding to a 

second office in Kerrville, Texas, in 2001 and 

adding Jay Bradford as a principal in 2004. 

In 2009, the firm’s name changed to JSA 

Architects. The new name reflects the desire to 

continue to expand and serve JSA clients 

beyond the careers of the two founders. JSA is 

developing the next generation of firm principals 

to carry on the heritage of JSA Architects. 

JSA ARCHITECTS, INC. 

Above: Ector County Courthouse 

Administration Building. 

Middle: Ector County Meteor 

Crater Museum. 

Below: Ector County Law 

Enforcement Center. 


ALLBRIGHT & 

ASSOCIATES, 

INC. 

Providing quality service, parts and 

merchandise to customers for over three 

decades in Odessa, Jim and Beverly Allbright 

created Allbright and Associates, Inc. in June 

1976. Jim had worked for several companies in 

the oilfield before founding the company at a 

small shop in West Odessa. Only four years 

later, Allbright & Associates outgrew the shop 

and moved to its present location at 8011 

Andrews Highway in 1980. 

Today, the company remains family-owned 

with three generations of Allbrights working at 

the same time and includes ten employees 

covering West Texas, southern New Mexico, 

Wyoming, and Louisiana. 

Allbright & Associates is a full line machine 

shop with air and gas compressor repair, pump 

overhaul, and a job shop. With a well-stocked 

parts department, the company also distributes 

Atlas Copco compressors, Champion Air 

compressors, Rol-Air compressors. 

The Allbrights and their employees are 

proud supporters of the West Odessa Volunteer 

Fire Department. 

For more information about Allbright & 

Associates and its product and services, please 

visit www.allbrightaircompressors.com. 


BRIDGES 

EQUIPMENT 

LTD. 

The crew at Bridges Equipment LTD. lives 

up to the BEL slogan, “From the Crown to the 

Ground,” and is the one-stop-shop and repair 

facility for the oil and gas drilling industry. 

The company is proud of its ability to meet the 

varied service, repair and supply needs of the 

oil and gas drilling industry and remains 

invested in the people and facilities that have 

made them a leader in the field. 

Nearly thirty years ago the founders of 

Bridges Equipment established a business 

solely dedicated to supplying premium service 

at a reasonable cost, and today carries a strong 

reputation for supplying premium products 

backed up by quality service. The company has 

enjoyed steady growth even as the market has 

swung across highs and lows. They attribute 

their growth to never compromising the level 

of service they give to customers and the 

continuous investment in talents and facilities 

to best serve each and every customer. 

Bridges has invested itself in the heart of the 

Permian Basin through a facility to undertake 

complete service, repair, overhaul and the 

remanufacturing of oil and gas field equipment. 

An experienced team of professionals have at 

their disposal the machine tools and fabrication 

facilities to repair, overhaul and manufacture the 

equipment and components, up to the largest 

bores and diameters, found in the industry. 

The company specializes in machining certain 

types of gears and components, with clients 

operating in all the world’s major oil and gas 

fields.In addition to repair and overhaul, Bridges 

Equipment LTD. facilities are renowned for manufacturing 

their own design of drawworks, pump 

unitization equipment and reverse engineering 

components that have either been discontinued 

in production or are very difficult to find. 

Bridges Equipment LTD. feels that the 

company’s history is the foundation of its 

experience and success, but has always looked 

to the future to remain on the leading edge of 

the best technology and offer methods best 

suited to serve its customers. 

For more information about Bridges 

Equipment LTD., visit the company online at 

www.bridgesequipment.com. 


JOHNSON BROS. 

OIL COMPANY 

Founded on January 7, 1946, Johnson Bros. 

Oil Co., Inc. is a supplier of gasoline, diesels, 

kerosene and solvent and a complete line of 

lubricants including fleet, hydraulic, machine, 

farm, aviation and gear oils and greases. This 

historic company was a small operation when it 

started, supplying only Ector County until 1951 

when the company purchased territory in 

Midland County. 

Brothers Homer, Roy, Ernest and Herbert 

Johnson were the original founders of the company. 

Homer was the oldest and was in the 

Phillips 66 wholesale business in Levelland, 

Texas, when the opportunity in Odessa became 

available. Homer contacted Roy, who was farming 

at the time. Roy made the difficult decision 

to leave the farm to become the manager of the 

business. Ernest and Herbert returned from 

service in World War II in early 1946-47 and 

joined their brothers in the business. After graduating 

from Texas Tech University in 1973, 

Herbert’s son, Gary began his career in the family 

company in 1975 

and became an owner 

in 1980. 

In the beginning, the 

business was located on 

a fifty foot dirt lot with 

a small office and storage 

capacity and very 

limited space. In 1951 

the company purchased 

an additional fifty feet 

and enlarged storage 

capacity. In 1955 an old 

Texaco yard and warehouse 

were purchased 

and a new office and 60 x 140 foot warehouse 

addition were constructed. 

During drilling booms in the 1950s and 

1960s, the company would service drilling rigs 

on a twenty-four hour basis. In the earlier years, 

Johnson Bros. merchandise was received by 

freight train and it took everyone to get the 

freight unloaded, including the Phillips 66 

salesmen. Of course, they knew the more freight 

Johnson Bros. ordered, the more commission 

they would make, so they were happy to help. 

During this time, the company was servicing 

nearly fifteen service stations and thirty-five oilfield 

drilling rigs, as well as numerous other 

customer accounts that were growing just as 

quickly as Johnson Bros. Oil Company. 

Today, this historic company has survived 

through five major economic downturns by 

relying on their loyal customers and a reputation 

of excellent customer service. In 2010 the 

company employs six people and services 175 

active customer accounts. 

Today, Herbert and Gary and their wives, 

Betty and Laurie, are the company’s remaining 

stockholders. Herbert has served on the Odessa 

Industrial Development Board and has been 

actively involved and has served in various 

capacities in his church. Gary has been a member 

of many nonprofit boards in Odessa, serves 

on the Odessa College Board of Trustees, is 

active in his church and served as the Ector 

County Chairman of the Republican Party for 

seventeen years. 

For more information about Johnson Bros. 

Oil Co., Inc., visit the company at 701 West 

First Street in Odessa, by phone at 432-332- 

6821 or e-mail at jboco@nts-online.net. 


Providing dependable oilfield transportation 

throughout Texas and New Mexico and servicing 

all forty-eight states in the continental U.S., 

E. L. Farmer & Company traces its history to 

the dawn of the twentieth century in Vinton, 

Louisiana when Ernest Lafayette Farmer used 

mule teams to haul logs, build roads, and do 

construction. In the early 1920s, he moved 

to Breckenridge, Texas and completed two 

railroad lines before selling his mule teams to 

enter the oilfield trucking business in 1925. 

E. L. Farmer & Company was born and soon 

moved its headquarters to Odessa in 1933. 

success of the company. From 1936 to the late 

1990s, Ferguson was joined by Harry Scott, 

George Benner, and Patti Hardison. From the 

late 1990s to 2003 the company included 

Frank Morris Faye Griffin, Jimmie B. Todd, and 

Patti Hardison. 

E. L. FARMER & 

COMPANY 

That same year, J. C. (Bill) Ferguson arrived 

in Odessa and applied for a position at E. L. 

Farmer. After working for the company in 

McCamey, he returned to Odessa as the company’s 

bookkeeper for fifty dollars per month. 

Ferguson gradually bought stock in the company 

through a profit sharing program, and later 

bought out the stock owned by the founders. 

The company, specializing in rig moving, 

grew to over 600 trucks in twenty-five different 

locations. Due to the downturn in the 

oilfield industry in the mid-1980s, 

Ferguson changed the company’s focus 

from rig moves to flatbed hauling and 

scaled back the operation to fit market 

needs. Ferguson ran the business until 

his death in 1997. 

Many outstanding leaders have played 

an important role in the century-long 

Today, Todd is the company’s president and 

is joined by Dave Musgraves in overseeing 

the operation of the company’s 250 trucks 

and 4 pipe yards in 13 different locations. 

Specializing in oilfield trucking throughout the 

area, E. L. Farmer & Company headquarters are 

located at 3800 East Forty-Second Street, Suite 

417 in Odessa. Other cities in the service area 

include Lone Star, Snyder, Mission, Mineral 

Wells, Houston, Sweetwater, Hobbs, Rusk, 

Robstown, Laredo and Kilgore. 

E. L. Farmer & Company continues to support 

various local charitable organizations as 

well as participating in various community 

activities. For more information about the 

historic company, visit www.elfarmer.com. 


MORRISON 

SUPPLY 

COMPANY 

The Morrison Supply Company offices 

under construction on Second Street 

in 1946 (above), and the completed 

offices (below). Over fifty years later, 

the company remains at its Second 

Street location. 

In 1917, J. T. Morrison, W. L. Armstrong and 

R. P. Turbeville founded Fort Worth Pump & 

Windmill Company in Texas. It became Fort 

Worth Supply Company to reflect its new 

direction and focus on plumbing supplies in 

1920; and was renamed Morrison Supply 

Company in 1926 to honor the leadership of 

J. T. Morrison. 

During the company’s first three decades, 

operations were confined to Texas as its various 

branches grew up around the state: Amarillo 

in 1922, Wichita Falls in 1926, and Lubbock 

in 1940. 

When the decision was made to open a 

branch in Odessa just after the war in 1946, the 

company purchased an airplane hangar from 

the military base at Midland and moved it to its 

current location along Second Street. Today, the 

company remains at the same location and is 

still serving the Permian Basin region. 

Following the onset of the Great Depression, 

Glen Turbeville, the son of R. P. Turbeville, was 

chosen to direct the company and remained 

there for a half century as the president and then 

chairman of the board. 

In 1984, Morrison’s longtime CEO Turbeville 

died and Bill Grannell was chosen as his successor. 

In 1986, under Grannell’s leadership, Morrison 

Supply Company was bifurcated into two 

entities: Morrison Supply Company with six 

remaining branches in Texas, and Fox Supply 

Company with five branches in Colorado. 

Grannell purchased Fox Supply Company and 

returned to his native home in Denver. Scott 

Sangalli purchased Morrison Supply Company 

and assumed the position of president and CEO. 

In 1995, Morrison purchased the assets of 

Milstead Supply Company, with outlets in 

Austin, New Braunfels, and Waco. In 1996, 

American Supply Company and its branches in 

Texarkana, Kilgore, Tyler, and Nacogdoches 

were purchased. 

In 1998, Sangalli appointed Darrell Hawkins 

as president and COO and remained chairman 

and CEO. In the following decade, Morrison 

added HVAC and oilfield supplies, utilities, 

appliances and decorative hardware to its 

product lines and opened more than fifty-five 

new locations across the southwest. 

Today, Morrison Supply Company continues 

to flourish with its historic dedication to 

providing customers with unsurpassed product 

availability, expert service, and competitive 

prices, includes more than eighty stocking 

distribution centers and thirty showrooms 

throughout Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, 

Kansas, and New Mexico, and a staff of highly 

trained employees. 


SPONSORS 

Albritton Machine, Inc. ..............................................................................................................................................................152 

Allbright & Associates, Inc. ........................................................................................................................................................184 

Angel Veterinary Clinic...............................................................................................................................................................124 

B-Line Filter & Supply, Inc.........................................................................................................................................................180 

Ball & Seat Specialties Company/Texas Specialty Ball Co./SphereTec Inc. ...................................................................................128 

The Barn Door Steakhouse and Pecos Depot ................................................................................................................................82 

Basin Equipment Company, Inc..................................................................................................................................................173 

Basin Machine & Manufacturing Company, Inc. .........................................................................................................................177 

BB Chemicals, Inc. .....................................................................................................................................................................150 

Blakely Construction Company ..................................................................................................................................................127 

Bridges Equipment LTD. ............................................................................................................................................................185 

Brown Electric Company............................................................................................................................................................175 

CEMEX Construction Materials South, LLC................................................................................................................................144 

Commercial Ice Machine Company ..............................................................................................................................................87 

Complex Community Federal Credit Union .................................................................................................................................88 

Cook’s Engine Service, Inc..........................................................................................................................................................172 

Diamond Tank Rental, Inc..........................................................................................................................................................154 

E. L. Farmer & Company ...........................................................................................................................................................187 

Ector County Independent School District..................................................................................................................................110 

Emergency Communication District of Ector County..................................................................................................................112 

Engine Service & Supply............................................................................................................................................................156 

Fran Sales & Service/Fran Corporation/Francene’s Fancies..........................................................................................................181 

Freedom Pontiac Buick, GMC Trucks, Inc. ...................................................................................................................................84 

Furniture Land.............................................................................................................................................................................99 

The Garriga Law Firm, PC............................................................................................................................................................92 

Grandview Veterinary Clinic, P.C. ...............................................................................................................................................120 

The Healthy Heart Center of Odessa...........................................................................................................................................114 

Hill’s Carpet Shop.........................................................................................................................................................................98 

Hinton Enterprises .....................................................................................................................................................................127 

Holly Sorrells, Realtor ................................................................................................................................................................168 

Hughes Oilfield Transportation, Inc............................................................................................................................................160 

Industrial Communications, Inc. ..................................................................................................................................................94 

Insignia Hospitality Group ...........................................................................................................................................................76 

International Derrick Service, LLC..............................................................................................................................................174 

Joe Allbright Insurance.................................................................................................................................................................90 

Johnson Bros. Oil Company .......................................................................................................................................................186 

JSA Architects, Inc......................................................................................................................................................................183 

K-B Safe & Lock Co. ....................................................................................................................................................................91 

La Margarita Mexican Food ..........................................................................................................................................................93 

Lenco Industrial Services, Inc.....................................................................................................................................................182 

Lewis Casing Crews, Inc.............................................................................................................................................................158 

Light Tower Rentals, Inc.............................................................................................................................................................136 

Liz’s Linens...................................................................................................................................................................................89 

Manuel’s Odessa Tortilla & Tamale Factory, Inc. ...........................................................................................................................86 

McAfee Machine, Inc..................................................................................................................................................................162 

McGuire Industries, Inc..............................................................................................................................................................138 

McKay Equipment Company......................................................................................................................................................132 

SPONSORS ✦ 189

Medical Center Health System....................................................................................................................................................106 

Meister Industries, Inc. & Longhorn Custom Coating, Inc..........................................................................................................169 

Midland Odessa Transportation Organization .............................................................................................................................123 

Morrison Supply Company.........................................................................................................................................................188 

Oberkampf Supply, Inc.................................................................................................................................................................97 

Odessa Chamber of Commerce...................................................................................................................................................125 

Odessa Christian School.............................................................................................................................................................121 

Odessa College...........................................................................................................................................................................116 

Odessa Country Club .................................................................................................................................................................102 

Odessa Regional Medical Center.................................................................................................................................................118 

Odessa Spring, Brake & Axle, Inc.................................................................................................................................................96 

Permian Basin Regional Planning Commission............................................................................................................................104 

Permian Machinery Movers ........................................................................................................................................................179 

Precision Coatings ......................................................................................................................................................................130 

Prime Time Christian Broadcasting, Inc./God’s Learning Channel, GLC ........................................................................................80 

Rig Works, Inc. ..........................................................................................................................................................................178 

The Samson Corporation............................................................................................................................................................127 

Selman & Associates, Ltd. ..........................................................................................................................................................134 

Sewell Ford Lincoln......................................................................................................................................................................72 

Slip Service Company.................................................................................................................................................................140 

Sulzer Pumps, Inc ......................................................................................................................................................................146 

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at the Permian Basin ............................................................................................108 

Tripple M Oil Tool, Inc...............................................................................................................................................................142 

Trower Realtors, Inc. ..................................................................................................................................................................176 

TYL Propane Inc.........................................................................................................................................................................170 

United Pump & Supply, Inc. ......................................................................................................................................................164 

The University of Texas of the Permian Basin .............................................................................................................................122 

Walker Air Conditioning, LLC....................................................................................................................................................171 

Western National Bank.................................................................................................................................................................95 

Western Repair Service ...............................................................................................................................................................166 

WNCO Valve International Inc...................................................................................................................................................148 


ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

G LENN 

J USTICE 

A West Texas native, author Glenn Justice has written extensively about the history the Big Bend and Permian Basin. Justice 

completed a BA and MA in history at the University of Texas Permian Basin in 1988. While working as a staff writer for the new 

edition of the Handbook of Texas published by the Texas State Historical Association, Justice penned numerous articles on west Texas 

for the massive encyclopedia of Texas history. 

A recipient of the Permian Basin Graduate Fellowship of the Permian Basin Historical Society, Justice became a member of Phi 

Alpha Theta in 1987 and served on the Ector County Historical Commission and the board of directors of the Permian Basin 

Historical Society. He has presented various professional papers to such organizations as The Texas State Historical Association, the 

West Texas Historical Association, the Permian Basin Historical Society and the Center For Bend Studies. The writer also taught 

history at the University of Texas Permian Basin and Midland College. He has written four books including Revolution on the Rio 

Grande, Odessa: An Illustrated History, Cattle and Dudes, and Little Known History Of The Texas Big Bend. Justice is managing editor of 

Rimrock Press and moderates Glenn’s Texas History Blog at www.rimrockpress.com/blog. 

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHY 

M ARTHA 

E DWARDS 

Martha Edwards holds a BA in Art/Anthropology and a MA in Secondary Education/Art from the University of Texas Permian 

Basin. At UTPB she worked as director of Instructional Media Services from 1971 to 1985 and instructor of photography from 2002 

until 2009. She also taught photography at Odessa College from 1986 until 1989. 

In 1991 Martha did the photo research for Odessa: An Illustrated History published by Windsor Publications of Chatsworth, 

California. Since 1986 Edwards has owned and operated Cinema Station in Odessa where she does video production. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHY ✦ 191

For more information about the following publications or about publishing your own book, please call 

Historical Publishing Network at 800-749-9790 or visit www.lammertinc.com. 

Albemarle & Charlottesville: 

An Illustrated History of the First 150 Years 

Black Gold: The Story of Texas Oil & Gas 

Garland: A Contemporary History 

Historic Abilene: An Illustrated History 

Historic Alamance County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Albuquerque: An Illustrated History 

Historic Amarillo: An Illustrated History 

Historic Anchorage: An Illustrated History 

Historic Austin: An Illustrated History 

Historic Baldwin County: A Bicentennial History 

Historic Baton Rouge: An Illustrated History 

Historic Beaufort County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Beaumont: An Illustrated History 

Historic Bexar County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Birmingham: An Illustrated History 

Historic Brazoria County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Brownsville: An Illustrated History 

Historic Charlotte: 

An Illustrated History of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County 

Historic Chautauqua County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Cheyenne: A History of the Magic City 

Historic Clayton County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Comal County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Corpus Christi: An Illustrated History 

Historic DeKalb County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Denton County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Edmond: An Illustrated History 

Historic El Paso: An Illustrated History 

Historic Erie County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Fayette County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Fairbanks: An Illustrated History 

Historic Gainesville & Hall County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Gregg County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Hampton Roads: Where America Began 

Historic Hancock County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Henry County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Hood County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Houston: An Illustrated History 

Historic Hunt County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Illinois: An Illustrated History 

Historic Kern County: 

An Illustrated History of Bakersfield and Kern County 

Historic Lafayette: 

An Illustrated History of Lafayette & Lafayette Parish 

Historic Laredo: 

An Illustrated History of Laredo & Webb County 

Historic Lee County: The Story of Fort Myers & Lee County 

Historic Louisiana: An Illustrated History 

Historic Mansfield: A Bicentennial History 

Historic Midland: An Illustrated History 

Historic Mobile: 

An Illustrated History of the Mobile Bay Region 

Historic Montgomery County: 

An Illustrated History of Montgomery County, Texas 

Historic Ocala: The Story of Ocala & Marion County 

Historic Oklahoma: An Illustrated History 

Historic Oklahoma County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Omaha: 

An Illustrated History of Omaha and Douglas County 

Historic Orange County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Osceola County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Ouachita Parish: An Illustrated History 

Historic Paris and Lamar County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Pasadena: An Illustrated History 

Historic Passaic County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Pennsylvania An Illustrated History 

Historic Philadelphia: An Illustrated History 

Historic Prescott: 

An Illustrated History of Prescott & Yavapai County 

Historic Richardson: An Illustrated History 

Historic Rio Grande Valley: An Illustrated History 

Historic Rogers County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Santa Barbara: An Illustrated History 

Historic Scottsdale: A Life from the Land 

Historic Shelby County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Shreveport-Bossier: 

An Illustrated History of Shreveport & Bossier City 

Historic South Carolina: An Illustrated History 

Historic Smith County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Temple: An Illustrated History 

Historic Texarkana: An Illustrated History 

Historic Texas: An Illustrated History 

Historic Victoria: An Illustrated History 

Historic Tulsa: An Illustrated History 

Historic Wake County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Warren County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Williamson County: An Illustrated History 

Historic Wilmington & The Lower Cape Fear: 

An Illustrated History 

Historic York County: An Illustrated History 

Iron, Wood & Water: An Illustrated History of Lake Oswego 

Jefferson Parish: Rich Heritage, Promising Future 

Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods: A History of Community 

Old Orange County Courthouse: A Centennial History 

Plano: An Illustrated Chronicle 

The New Frontier: 

A Contemporary History of Fort Worth & Tarrant County 

San Antonio, City Exceptional 

The San Gabriel Valley: A 21st Century Portrait 

The Spirit of Collin County 

Valley Places, Valley Faces 

Water, Rails & Oil: Historic Mid & South Jefferson County 


LEADERSHIP 

SPONSORS 

SEWELL 

FORD, INC. 

INSIGNIA 

HOSPITALITY 

GROUP 

ISBN: 9781935377580

Ector County, Texas - 125 Years of History

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