Roy Orbison Museum

Wink began in 1926, when oil came in on the Hendrick field, and the Wink Townsite Company was selling lots in a ranch pasture by mid-1927. Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas, on April 23, 1936, the son of an oil-field driller, and the family moved out to Wink in the 1940s, where he went through high school. He formed his first bands here, the Wink Westerners and then the Teen Kings, played school dances and turned up on television out of Midland and Odessa before leaving for Sun Records and a career that ran from "Ooby Dooby" to the Traveling Wilburys. Asked later about Wink, he summed it up as "football, oil fields, oil, grease, and sand."

The museum on Hendricks Boulevard is small and run by volunteers. When Marfa Public Radio visited in 2024, the volunteers' phone numbers were posted on the front door, and whoever answered came over to unlock it and give the tour. A mural of Orbison faces the street. Inside are the things a hometown keeps: a bowling ball, a ticket stub from a concert in Odessa, a quilt made of Orbison T-shirts, a guitar he played, and a map stuck with pins from visitors who have come from every state.

The tour ends with a small box brought out from behind the counter. In it is a pair of Orbison's prescription sunglasses, heavy, with lavender-tinted lenses rather than the black ones of the album covers.