This Week in Odessa History

Fifty years ago this week things were looking up in Odessa, which was believed to have become the largest town in Lincoln County.

There was a scramble for housing, in fact, living quarters of any kind, as dozens of construction workers moved in to work on the ICBM launching site under construction south of Batum. Test drilling for oil was going on, attracting more people.

Prosperity was in the air. A front page report in The Odessa Record on the town’s new growth was headlined “Odessa Heading for County Top”. It appeared in the issue of November 9, 1961:

The 1960 census that showed Davenport w...