DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I wouldn't change a word. Now, if you're rolling through Wise County and you find yourself wondering how far back the roots go out here, let me tell you about a post office, and not just any post office. This was the first one.
The very first in all of Wise County, sitting right here in Odessa. It opened September 8, 1855. And the man they handed the keys to, if a frontier post office can be said to have keys, was Benjamin B.
Haney. First white settler in Wise County. First postmaster.
Man had a habit of being first. Now the second postmaster, appointed December 5, 1856, was Martha E. Marshall.
And the third was Nathan Huff, who stepped in on March 16, 1860, and kept that office running until the whole operation was discontinued. December 5, 1866. Eleven years of mail moving through this corner of Texas, and then quiet.
But here's the part that deserves a little appreciation. The mail didn't just appear. Two contractors.
David C. Haynes and William Quagle, hauled it in every Saturday by stagecoach, coming up from Birdville, twenty-five miles southeast. They'd roll into Odessa right at noon.
Twelve o'clock on the nose. Stayed exactly two hours at the George Wilmouth Inn, long enough to rest the horses, swap the news, hand over whatever letters folks had been waiting on, and then turned right back around, arriving in Birdville by eight in the evening. Every Saturday.
Rain or shine. Twenty-five miles each way. The office ran until 1866, when it was discontinued.
And it wouldn't be until 1893 that a second post office came to serve this community, only by then it went by a different name: Newark. That change came about because another Odessa had been founded, way down in Ector County, and you can't have two towns with the same name sharing a postal system without somebody getting the wrong mail. One post office.
Eleven years. Two contractors and a stagecoach every Saturday at noon. That's how Wise County got its letters.
What the marker says
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)