W.T. Barrett Stadium

College athletes ran at W.T. too, and Odessa College built a long record of its own. Its teams hold thirty-nine national titles; women compete in basketball, track, rodeo and tennis, and men in baseball, basketball, golf, rodeo, tennis and track. The campus grew from fifteen buildings on thirty-five acres in 1960 to twenty-five buildings on eighty acres. From 1969 to 1972 Odessa College and Midland College were joined in the Permian Junior College System. In the 1970-71 school year the college began a ten-day Mid-Winter Session, the first such short term at a Texas college.

What the plaque says

W.T. Barrett Stadium As the focal point of the city of Odessa for over 30 years, W.T. Barrett Stadium was built in 1948. The stadium, built of steel and wood and nicknamed "W.T.," witnessed thousands of west Texans compete for the win as football players, members of track teams and marching band participants. Prior to 1948 when "W.T." was built, games and events were held at Fly Field, adjacent to Odessa High School. In 1946, Odessa High School won the state football championship. In honor of their accomplishment, the school board erected a new stadium to hold over 17,000 fans. The first game held at the stadium on october 15, 1948, boasted 15,000 people in attendance to see Odessa play Abilene High School. At times, the stadium held almost 20,000 people. In addition to football games, the stadium hosted University Interscholastic League marching band competitions. Bands from west Texas high schools hoped for the opportunity to march at "W.T.," the largest stadium at the time between Abilene and El Paso. In 1950, a cinder track was installed making it the only one of its kind in west Texas. An advanced improvement at the time, the track helped cement "W.T." As a first-class track facility. Eventually open to junior high through college students, the West Texas Relays crowd held at "W.T" totaled in the thousands and many competitors went on to be members of the U.S. Olympic team. From the first football game in 1948 to the last game in 1981, the W.T. Barrett Stadium was a place of excitement, enthusiasm and community spirit for generations. The stadium was sold and moved to Leander in 1983 but the memories live on through the community and competitors who experienced the "W.T." (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• White-Pool House — 2.0 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.
• Odessa Meteor Crater — 9.2 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.
• Midland Army Air Field Museum — 11 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.
• Permian Basin Petroleum Museum — 19 mi
  Midland's museum of the oil basin it sits on, from a restored diorama of the Permian reef to a 40-acre yard of drilling rigs and Jim Hall's Chaparral race cars.

More markers nearby

• Mrs. John L. Morris (Marjorie) — steps away
• Site of Odessa College — 0.4 mi
• Odessa — 1.2 mi
• The Jackrabbit — 1.2 mi