DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now settle in, because this one starts with big dreams, a suspicious fire, and a story that takes more than half a century to find its ending. We're talkin' about the site of Odessa College, out in Ector County, and friend, the road to learning out here was not a straight one.
The Odessa Townsite Company put up twelve thousand dollars — real money, frontier money — to get a college off the ground. And they didn't stop there. They reached out to a northern Methodist group, who matched that fund in 1888, dollar for dollar.
That's twenty-four thousand dollars and a whole lot of ambition aimed at one West Texas town. A Reverend M. A.
Daugherty, coming all the way from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was placed in charge of the whole operation, and the college was allowed a twenty-acre plot to call its own. They broke ground on a two-story building in 1890. Two stories.
Out here on the plains, that must've looked like something. Then came 1891, and with it, fourteen students and a teacher named Miss Alice Wright, who had traveled all the way from Maine to stand in front of those young Texans and do the work of education. Think about that journey for a moment — from the coast of Maine to the high desert of West Texas.
She came anyway. Classes were taught. A session was held.
And then — well, this is where the story takes its dark turn. A fire. The marker calls it, and I want you to hear this word exactly as it's written, a Mystery fire.
Capital M. Mystery. That fire destroyed the college after just one session.
One. The church-sponsored college was never rebuilt. Whatever that fire was — and the marker isn't sayin', and neither am I — it took the whole thing down and left nothing but scorched ground and unanswered questions.
The dreams of the Odessa Townsite Company, the matched funds, the two-story building, Miss Wright's classroom, all of it — gone. Now here's the part that makes this more than a tragedy. It took fifty-five years, but in 1946, a new Odessa College was founded — founded, the marker says, to fulfill the aims of leadership in education.
Same aim. New century. That Mystery fire didn't get the last word after all.
What the marker says
Established through efforts of Odessa Townsite Co., which gave $12,000; a northern methodist group matched this fund in 1888. Rev. M. A. Daugherty, Pittsburgh, Pa., was placed in charge, and a 20-acre plot was allowed to the college. Erection of a 2-story building began in 1890. In 1891 classes for 14 students were taught by Miss Alice Wright, of Maine. A "Mystery" fire destroyed the college after one session. This church-sponsored college was never rebuilt. In 1946, the new Odessa college was founded to fulfill aims of leadership in education. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967.