Site of The Odessa Sanitarium
Odessa, Ector County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established in 1886 by Odessa Townsite Company, the Odessa medical and surgical sanitarium was directed by Dr. R.E. Haughton, a former railroad physician from Indiana. It was located in a two-story wooden structure of twenty rooms. By March 1890 the project had failed. Dr. Haughton moved to Midland. The building became a have for migrant families. A portion was used as a church. When Ector County was created in January 1891, the sanitarium was moved several blocks and became the first Ector County Courthouse. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The building's tumbling succession of uses captures the improvised, make-do spirit of a frontier boomtown scrambling to become a permanent community.
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Related people
- · Dr. R.E. Haughton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
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.
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.