Goldsmith

The town's name came out of the post office. In 1936 Imogene Bunn petitioned for an office under the name Ector City, but another Texas town already had it, so the name went instead to rancher C. A. Goldsmith, whose land held the townsite. By 1937 Goldsmith had churches, a post office, a grocery, a restaurant and a rooming house; by 1938 it had a school, and electric lamps replaced kerosene that year. The population steadied at about 850, then fell after World War II as oilfield service firms moved to Odessa. It was 253 in 2000.

What the plaque says

Goldsmith Opened as oil field June 14, 1935, with flow of 1140 bbls. of crude oil daily from discovery well. Within a month, shacks and tents housed 350 people. Harry L. Tucker in May 1937 platted town of Ector City. Name later changed to honor C. A. Goldsmith, owner of the land. In 2 years, Goldsmith had cafes, taverns, a hospital, movie theater, hotels, motels, shops and a newspaper First residents paid 25 cents at only bath in town -- a shower sprayed from an overhead tank. Now a gas processing and distribution center. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Odessa Meteor Crater — 17 mi
  A shallow bowl in the ranchland southwest of Odessa where a shower of iron meteorites struck in the late Ice Age, with a trail down into it and a small museum on the rim.
• White-Pool House — 18 mi
  Odessa's oldest standing building, an 1887 brick house of a family the Texas and Pacific drew west, later cut into apartments for the oil boom and now a free house museum.
• Midland Army Air Field Museum — 24 mi
  A hangar museum at Midland's airport, run by Commemorative Air Force volunteers, telling how a 1927 grass field became the bombardier college that graduated 6,627 officers in World War II.

More markers nearby

• Captain Randolph B. Marcy's Southern Route Expedition — 6.6 mi
• Notrees — 9.3 mi
• LeGrande Survey of 1833 — 11 mi
• Baker Ranch School — 11 mi