Site of Homestead of William C. Sublett
Odessa, Ector County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born 1835 in Alabama. Moved to north Texas before the Civil War, in which he served as a Confederate. After his wife died in 1874, he went to the Texas frontier to hunt Buffalo, taking his three young children with him. In 1881-1882 he supplied game to Texas & Pacific Railroad construction crews. (Such hunting was important to development of west Texas and to transcontinental railroad construction.) Settling later in Odessa, Sublett built near this site a dugout-and-tent home, and homesteaded a 160 acre claim. To support his family, he hauled wood and "water-witched" to locate wells for settlers. In the 1880's he attracted notice by using gold nuggets to trade for supplies. In explanation, he said an Apache Indian had directed him to a mine in the Guadalupe Mountains, about 150 miles west of here. Periodically he disappeared and returned with gold, but efforts to follow him to the mine always failed. He once took his young son there, but the boy could not find the way later. in 1889, Sublett sold his Ector County property. He died Jan. 6, 1892, in Barstow, without disclosing the location of his mine. However, stories of his treasure still lure explorers into the Guadalupe Mountains. 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Alabama in 1835, William C. Sublett came to Texas before the Civil War, served the Confederacy, and after his wife's death took his three children to the frontier to hunt buffalo — supplying game to Texas & Pacific Railroad crews in 1881–1882. Settling near Odessa, he lived in a dugout-and-tent home, hauled wood, and 'water-witched' for settlers' wells. He became legendary for paying in gold nuggets he claimed came from an Apache-shown mine in the Guadalupe Mountains, vanishing and returning with more but never revealing its location before his death in 1892.
Why it matters
Sublett embodies the West Texas frontier — buffalo hunting, railroad building, and a lost-mine legend that still draws treasure seekers into the Guadalupes.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William C. Sublett
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
White-Pool House
Odessa, TX
Charles White came west from Indiana in the 1880s chasing opportunity and a drier climate, and in 1887—four years before Ector County even organized—he and his sons built this two-story brick house on the open plains near Odessa. Modeled on their Indiana home but adapted to local materials, it stood on a 640-acre tract alongside White's mercantile store. Decades later, WWI veteran Oso Pool bought the place, and during the frantic housing shortage of the 1927 oil boom turned it to new uses before the family finally donated it to the county.
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.
Ector County Courthouse
Odessa, TX
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.
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.