Site of Old Livery Stable and Wagon Yard
Odessa, Ector County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established 1897 as Odessa's first livery stable and wagon yard by Francis M. Tallant. Cowmen stabled their horses, then headed for ranch saloon located across from stable. Sold 1906 to C. A. Beardsley, who advertised "good rigs, dray line and prompt attention." Livery stable had saddle horses and animal-drawn vehicles for hire. Wagon yard offered shelter for travelers and their teams. Automobiles changed life. In 1915, Joe W. Rice bought stable and converted it into a garage sandstone structure (covered with stucco) still stands. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Francis M. Tallant opened Odessa's first livery stable and wagon yard in 1897, where cowmen stabled horses before heading for the nearby ranch saloon and travelers found shelter for their teams. A later owner advertised "good rigs" and prompt service, but the automobile changed everything: in 1915 Joe W. Rice bought the place and turned it into a garage. The surviving sandstone structure marks the pivot from horse to horsepower.
Why it matters
The old stable-turned-garage captures in one building the transportation revolution that swept even remote West Texas from wagon yards into the automobile age.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Francis M. Tallant
- · C. A. Beardsley
- · Joe W. Rice
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
Odessa Telephone Exchange
Odessa, TX
Odessa's telephone exchange opened around 1897 in the early years of rural Texas telephony, when connecting far-flung ranches meant improvising with whatever ran across the land. Under pioneer rancher A. Quincy Cooper, service reached the countryside by stringing calls along barbed-wire fence lines. In a remarkable coincidence, Cooper's repair work on one such line in 1915 briefly broke into the first transcontinental telephone call between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, and the exchange was folded into Southwestern Bell in 1928.
Odessa
Odessa, TX
After the Texas and Pacific Railway reached the area in 1881, an Ohio townsite company promoted Odessa to settlers, and excursion trains carried families like the Whites of Indiana out to the West Texas prairie. The town gained a post office in 1885, was platted in 1886, and became county seat when Ector County organized in 1891. A farming and ranching community until oil was struck nearby in 1926, Odessa boomed into a major petrochemical center after World War II.
Well's Point
Odessa, TX
As the Texas & Pacific Railroad pushed west from Fort Worth in 1879, crews dug water wells here in July 1881 to supply construction gangs and train crews, and the spot became known as "Well's Point." One well proved too alkaline to use, but the others sustained the workers. In February 1886, town promoters arrived in "an armada of prairie schooners" from Mariensfield, and Odessa was born that August on railroad land.