Ector County Courthouse
Odessa, Ector County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Seat of justice for Ector, created out of Tom Green County in 1887 and organized in 1891. The 1891 courthouse was frame, the remodelled town sanitarium, moved to the present square. Its first floor had rooms for the sheriff, court clerks and Odessa school, while the county and district courtroom was upstairs. As the only public building in town, it provided space for dances. socials and church services. Picnics and baptizings were held at the windmill and tank on the northwest corner of the square. As townsite restriction banned the sale of liquor, Odessa was usually quiet. However, fights broke out when settlers rushed to the courthouse to file claims on public lands. In 1904 a 2-story red stone courthouse was built just east of the early one. On the lawn in 1906 the Christian church was organized. At that time Odessa ha 400 people and little hope for growth, because of drouths and their effects on cattle raising. After oil discoveries of 1926 stimulated Ector's development, a 3-story cement building was erected in 1938. The fourth structure was dedicated April 12, 1964, by governor John Connally.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Ector County, carved from Tom Green County in 1887 and organized in 1891, first held court in a remodeled frame sanitarium that doubled as the town's only public building—hosting dances, church services, and land-claim fights alike. As Odessa grew, so did its courthouses: a red stone building in 1904, a cement structure after the oil boom of 1926, and finally the modern courthouse dedicated by Governor John Connally in 1964. Each rebuilding marks a stage in the town's climb from drought-stricken cattle country to oil-fueled city.
Why it matters
The county's succession of courthouses is a physical timeline of West Texas itself, from struggling frontier settlement to the prosperity unleashed by the Permian Basin oil boom.
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Related people
- · John Connally
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ector County Land Rush
Odessa, TX
In 1904 nearly every man in Ector County was drawn into a brawl over the right to file claims on four sections of public land, with Elias Dawson and Charlie Lewis each mustering friends to help—several men lost boots or clothing in the scramble before Lewis won. The fracas grew from Texas's unique history as a state that kept its vast public domain, using land to pay soldiers, fund schools, and build railroads until, by the 1880s, it was over-committed. Cancelled leases and corrected surveys finally reopened parcels, sparking rushes where men camped for months to be first at the clerk's window.
Site of The Odessa Sanitarium
Odessa, TX
In 1886 the Odessa Townsite Company opened a twenty-room, two-story medical and surgical sanitarium under Dr. R.E. Haughton, a former railroad physician from Indiana, hoping to draw settlers to the raw West Texas plains. The venture failed by 1890, and the building drifted through new lives as a haven for migrant families and a church. When Ector County was formed in 1891, the structure was moved and pressed into service as the county's first courthouse.
Odessa Land & Townsite Company
Odessa, TX
In 1886 the Texas & Pacific Railroad handed 640 acres of its land grant to John Hoge of Zanesville, Ohio, who formed the Odessa Land & Townsite Company to sell off town lots — prime house lots for $150, business lots for $200. He flooded the eastern states with literature touting rich soil, pure water, and a healthful climate, and the railroad ran excursion trains with free sleeping cars to lure buyers. A small frame land office stood on this site until 1911, later serving as school and church.
Waddell Pecan Tree
Odessa, TX
A few years after Odessa's founding in 1881, a squirrel is said to have buried a stolen pecan that sprouted into this tree, a green rarity in the dusty West Texas downtown. By the time the Waddell family moved to the adjoining home in 1926, neighbors were gathering to enjoy its native pecans. "Cotton" Waddell and his wife Mary Lee, part of a family influential in the region since the 1870s, let the tree shade the community as freely as they gave their time to civic life.