This Week in Odessa History

What should have been a joyous holiday season in 1918, with world War I having ended in November and many of the service men home or on their way home, was ruined by the ban on public gatherings which Lincoln County commissioners extended for fear that flu epidemic which was beginning to subside might flare up again.

The Odessa Record gave this report in its issue of December 20, 1918:

There are a disappointed lot of people in Odessa over the Lincoln County commissioners final action this week in refusing to raise the flu ban so as to permit the continuation of the public schools in which pupi...