Site of First Post Office in Wise County, Odessa

The settlement had more names than most. The Handbook of Texas says early settlers called it Caddo Village for remnants of Caddo culture along the West Fork of the Trinity, then Odessa. It was also Huff Valley for the many Huffs, Sueville for Sue Gary, and Ragtown, a sneer at the tents of Rock Island construction crews. When the railroad arrived in 1893, company officials laid out lots and reapplied for mail service. The town took the name Newark, perhaps from the hometown of surveying engineer G. K. Foster, and incorporated in 1951.

What the plaque says

Site of First Post Office in Wise County, Odessa 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)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Worth Stockyards — 17 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• Wise County Courthouse — 17 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's granite Romanesque courthouse of 1895-96 in Decatur, built after fire destroyed the Second Empire courthouse and set off a fight over the county seat.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 19 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 19 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.

More markers nearby

• Dido Cemetery — 3.3 mi
• Aurora Cemetery — 3.8 mi
• United Methodist Church of Rhome — 4.1 mi
• First National Bank in Rhome — 4.1 mi