Site of First Post Office in Wise County, Odessa
Newark, Wise County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established Sept. 8, 1855. First white settler in Wise County, Benjamin B. Haney, was the first postmaster. Second was Martha E. Marshall, appointed Dec. 5, 1856; third, Nathan Huff, served from March 16, 1860, until office was discontinued on Dec. 5, 1866. David C. Haynes and William Quagle, contractors, brought mail every Saturday by stagecoach from Birdville (25 mi. SE), arriving Odessa 12:00 noon. Stayed at George Wilmouth Inn two hours, arriving in Birdville 8:00 p.m. Second post office, Newark, opened 1893, after another Odessa was founded in Ector County. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Wise County's first post office, called Odessa, opened here on September 8, 1855, with the county's first settler, Benjamin B. Haney, as postmaster. Contractors carried the mail by stagecoach every Saturday from Birdville, twenty-five miles to the southeast, pausing two hours at George Wilmouth's inn before the long return. The office closed in 1866, and a new one—Newark—opened nearby in 1893 after a second Texas town claimed the name Odessa.
Why it matters
The site marks how the postal service and its stagecoach routes carried the first threads of connection and settlement into the North Texas frontier.
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Related people
- · Benjamin B. Haney
- · Martha E. Marshall
- · Nathan Huff
Themes & tags
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