The Caprock
Odessa, Ector County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A range of flat-topped ridges and cliffs stretching from Texas panhandle to 20 miles South of this point and extending into new Mexico. The name also refers to tough limestone that caps ridges. Rising sharply 200 to 1,000 ft. above plains. This section, Concho Bluffs, Marks Western edge of Caprock escarpment. Called the "Break of the plains" because it divides the staked plains from the north central plains of Texas. Observed by Coronado's expedition, 1540-1540, provided shelter in storms, but delayed entrance of settlers to staked plains. Herds of stampeding cattle at times plunged over its edge. In the area, the Caprock blocked eastbound wagons, including some from California gold fields in 1850'a. Because of scarce surface water, staked plains were too dry for farming or ranching until wells were drilled and windmills installed. Ridges and canyons here hindered railroad building. In 1881 workmen earned $2.50 a day-highest wages ever paid until then on a texas railroad job-at "Colt's Big Rock Cut" (the mile-wide, 17-ft. chasm visible here). A tragic accident with dynamite injured several of Colt's men and killed three. Their graves, known to the pioneers around Odessa, were on a hill northeast of the tracks, but cannot now be found.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Caprock is a wall of flat-topped ridges and limestone-capped cliffs that rises sharply above the plains, marking the western edge of the escarpment where the Staked Plains break away from the lower country to the east. Coronado's expedition skirted it in 1540, and for centuries it sheltered travelers from storms while barring easy passage to settlers and eastbound wagons, including some returning from the 1850s gold fields. Only after wells and windmills tamed the dry tableland did farming and ranching take hold, and in 1881 railroad crews earned top Texas wages blasting the mile-wide chasm known as Colt's Big Rock Cut, where a dynamite accident killed three men whose graves are now lost.
Why it matters
This dramatic escarpment shaped the pace of exploration, settlement, and railroad-building across West Texas, standing as a natural boundary in the story of the American frontier.
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Related people
- · Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
Related events
- · Coronado expedition (1540)
- · Railroad construction at Colt's Big Rock Cut (1881)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Captain Randolph B. Marcy's Southern Route Expedition
Odessa, TX
As the 1849 Gold Rush drew thousands westward, the U.S. Army sent Captain Randolph B. Marcy to escort the 'Forty-Niners' toward Santa Fe, opening a wagon road from Fort Smith with the help of the Delaware scout Black Beaver and engineer James H. Simpson. After delivering his party, Marcy set out to survey a return route from West Texas, guided by a noted Comanche named Manuel across the Pecos, the Monahans sandhills, and an old Comanche trail near present-day Odessa. The resulting Fort Smith–Santa Fe road gave emigrants a shorter southern path across the continent.
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.
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.
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.