Kermit
Kermit, Winkler County, Texas
Marker Inscription
County Seat of Winkler County. Organized in 1910. Incorporated in 1938. Name for Kermit Roosevelt, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, who had visited a local ranch. One of the top oil and gas producing counties in state. Ranch center. Gateway to New Mexico. (1964)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Kermit rose on the far West Texas plains as the seat of Winkler County, organized in 1910 in ranch country near the New Mexico line. The town carries an unusual namesake: Kermit Roosevelt, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, who had visited a nearby ranch. What began as a ranching center was transformed by the discovery of oil and gas, making Winkler one of the state's leading energy-producing counties.
Why it matters
Kermit captures the twin engines of the modern West Texas economy — cattle and petroleum — and the way an early-20th-century oil boom reshaped a quiet frontier county.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Winkler County was organized in 1910, the far western edge of Texas was still some of the emptiest country in the nation. This is the high, dry plain along the New Mexico line, a land of mesquite, shinnery oak and sand where you could ride all day and see more cattle than people. The big open-range era was fading, but ranching still defined this corner of the state, and a new county seat here was more hope than city.
Nationally it was the Progressive Era. Americans were arguing about conservation, big business and the nation's place in the world. Theodore Roosevelt had just left the White House after nearly eight years as president, and his energetic, outdoorsy image had made the American West part of a national identity. A town named for a Roosevelt fit the mood of the times.
The county's story then swung hard toward industry. In the 1920s, oil discoveries across the Permian Basin began turning West Texas ranchland into one of the richest petroleum regions on earth. Winkler County became part of that boom. Kermit's incorporation in 1938 marks a young town settling into permanent life after the first rush of the oil era.
People & events
The name comes from Kermit Roosevelt, the second son of President Theodore Roosevelt. According to the marker, the young Roosevelt had visited a ranch in the area, and the new town took his name. For a remote settlement looking for a little attention, borrowing a famous family name was a clever choice.
Kermit Roosevelt was no idle celebrity. He is well remembered for going with his father on two famous expeditions: a long hunting and scientific safari in Africa after the presidency, and a hard, dangerous journey down a river in the Brazilian wilderness. Like his father, he loved rough country and hard travel, so it is easy to see why a West Texas ranch would have appealed to him.
The people who built the town are the other half of the story. First came ranch families, who made Kermit a supply and shipping center for the cattle country around it. Then came the oil workers, drillers, pipeline crews and merchants who followed the boom. By the time the marker went up in 1964, Winkler County ranked among the top oil and gas producers in Texas, while ranching still went on around it.
Its place in the American story
Kermit tells a story that repeated itself across the American West in the 20th century. A town founded to serve cattle country got a second life, and a much bigger economy, from what lay under the grass. Oil from the Permian Basin fueled the cars, factories and military power that defined modern America, and towns like Kermit helped supply it.
The name is part of the national story too. Few families shaped the country's idea of the West like the Roosevelts, and Theodore Roosevelt's love of ranch life and wide-open spaces spread far beyond his own ranching years in the Dakotas. A county seat named for his son shows how far that Roosevelt image reached, all the way to the Texas–New Mexico line.
The marker calls Kermit a "gateway" to New Mexico, and that fits too. Border towns like this one tied Texas into the wider Southwest's economy of cattle, oil and highways. Much of the region's history happened between states rather than inside any one of them.
If you visit
Arriving in Kermit, you feel the size of the country right away. The land is flat and wide, the sky is enormous, and the horizon may be dotted with pumpjacks slowly nodding. It is a working landscape where ranching and energy still share the same ground.
Look for the marker, then take a slow drive through town and imagine it in its early years: a handful of buildings serving ranch families scattered across miles of range, before the oil boom brought crowds and money. The courthouse square and older commercial buildings are good places to picture how the town grew.
Kermit fits naturally into a Permian Basin road trip that crosses between West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Pair it with stops that explain the oil industry and the ranching past to see both halves of the region's story. Carry water and plan for long distances between services, because this is still wide-open country.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Kermit Roosevelt
- · Theodore Roosevelt
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Winkler County
Kermit, TX
Carved from Tom Green County and created in 1887, Winkler County waited until 1910 to fully organize, taking shape as a ranching frontier in far West Texas. It honors C. M. Winkler, a nineteenth-century statesman, soldier, and jurist, and centers on its seat at Kermit. Cattle grazing gave way, in time, to the petroleum wealth that came to define the region.
The Community Church
Kermit, TX
For fifty years West Texas settlers met their religious needs through camp meetings, circuit riders, and singings held at ranches and schoolhouses. When this church was organized in 1928, it worshiped in Kermit's old 1910 courthouse, bought for a single dollar. After oil transformed the region, generous ranchers built the present brick edifice — the first brick building in Kermit — on the site of that first church, dedicating it in 1938.
Old Duval Townsite
Kermit, TX
Winkler County's first post office opened near here in 1908 on the John Howe ranch, serving 300 people with mail twice a week. The Pueblo Investment Company promoted the Duval townsite nationwide, opening it in March 1910 with free lots, a picnic, and a cowboy tournament—but when Kermit won the county seat, Duval withered. After oil was struck in 1928 its townsite rights were canceled, leaving the ownership of many 1910 lots tangled to this day.
Wink
Wink, TX
The land beneath Wink was Comanche country until 1874, then range for the sprawling "W" cattle ranch. Everything changed in 1926, when Roy Westbrook struck oil in the Permian Basin just north of here and a town materialized almost overnight, swelling with ten to twenty thousand fortune-seekers. Named for Confederate officer C. M. Winkler, Wink became a raw emblem of West Texas's headlong rush from open range to oil derricks.