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attribute them to Odessa
whether they were there or not. Through brochures and pamphlets it conjured tip a place with weather as wonderful as
Southern California's and soil as fertile as that of the finest acre
of farmland in Kansas or Iowa.
    "Splendid cities will spring up all along the railroads that
traverse the plains, and immense fortunes will be made there
in a few years, in land business ventures, you will see the most
remarkable emigration to that section that has occurred since
the days when the discovery of gold sent wealth-seekers by
thousands into Colorado," Henry Thatcher boldly forecast in
the Chillicothe Leader in 1886.
    If that wasn't enough to make someone leave southern Ohio, Odessa was also promoted as a utopian health spa with a
$12,000 college and a public library, and a ban on alcohol.
Those suffering from consumption, bronchitis, malaria, kidney, bladder, or prostate problems, asthma, or rheumatism
would be welcomed with open arms, according to a promotional pamphlet.

    'Those who were failures, near death, didn't like working,
bad with money, or cheap politicians were specifically not welcome, the same pamphlet said. The statement appeared to
exclude many of the people who might have been interested in
such a place.
    The great Odessa land auction took place on May 19, 1886.
The Zanesvile boys, careful to the last drop, actually held it 350
miles to the east, in Dallas. Historical accounts of Odessa do not
accurately indicate how many settlers bought lots. But about
ten families, German Methodists from western Pennsylvania
around Pittsburgh, hoping to realize the utopian community so
grandly talked about, did arrive.
    They tried to fit in with the ranchers and cowboys who were
already there, but it was not a good match. The Methodists
found the ranchers and the cowboys beyond saving. The ranchers and the cowboys found that the Methodists did nothing but
yell at them all the time.
    As part of its commitment, the syndicate went ahead and
built a college for the Methodists. It was constructed around
1889 but burned mysteriously three years later. Some said the
college was set afire by cowboys who disliked being told by the
Methodists that they could not drink, particularly in a place
that cried out daily for alcohol. Others said it was burned by a
contingent of jealous citizens from Midland because the Odessa
college was competing with a similar institution that the sister
city had built. Finally, there were those who said the college was
burned down simply because it was something the damn Yankees had built the natives of the city when no one had asked for
it. Given the later attitudes of Odessa, all these theories are probably true. A hospital was also built, but most settlers ignored it and instead relied on such tried-and-true home remedies as cactus juice and a wrap of cabbage leaves for the chills,
a plaster made out of fresh cow manure for sprains, and buzzard grease for measles.

    Contrary to all the boasts of the land's fertility, it was virtually
impossible to farm anything because of the difficulty of getting
water. Instead, Odessa eked out a living from the livestock
trade, all dreams of utopia gone forever when the town's first
sheriff, Elias Dawson, decided that the ban on alcohol constituted cruel and unusual punishment and became the proprietor, along with his brother, of the town's first saloon.
    The first murder in Odessa occurred late in the nineteenth
century when a cowboy rode into a water-drilling camp one
afternoon and demanded something to eat from the cook.
The cook, described as a "chinanian," refused, so the cowboy
promptly shot him. He was taken to San Angelo and put on
trial, but the judge freed him on the grounds that there were
no laws on the books making it illegal to kill a Chinaman.
    For more casual entertainment, a couple of cowboys gathered up all the cats they could find one day, tied sacks of dried
beans to their tails, and