DOURO, TEXAS. Douro, ten miles southwest of Odessa in south central Ector County, was founded when the Texas and Pacific Railway built through the area in 1881. Original plans for the settlement set aside a city lot for a future courthouse. Although developers advertised the area and sold property, the community grew little beyond a station house. Development was stimulated by the establishment of the oil industry in the late 1920s, and by 1930 Douro reported a population of twenty-five and one business. In the early 1980s Douro remained a Missouri-Pacific railroad switch, just south of Interstate Highway 20.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Finas Wade Horton, A History of Ector County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1950).

Charles G. Davis