WEST ODESSA, TEXAS. West Odessa is on the western edge of Odessa and Monahans Draw in central Ector County. It is a wedge-shaped sixty square-mile area, bordered by Farm roads 866 and 302, Loop 338, and Interstate Highway 20. It was named for its proximity to Odessa and was settled primarily from 1979 to 1982, the years of the last oil boom. The community began in a previous boom, and it expanded and declined with each subsequent boom and bust. A few large homes in West Odessa were built as ranch houses at an earlier time when the surrounding land was devoted to cattle raising. Over the years the town enveloped them. In 1985 two-thirds of the housing units in West Odessa were mobile homes. That year the community had a population of 13,350, 216 businesses employing 1,925 workers, eleven churches, a public elementary school, and a volunteer fire station. In 1987 a branch of the Odessa post office was established in the community. In 1988 West Odessa reported a population of 27,116 and twenty-seven businesses. West Odessa has two serious problems-poor soil and water. Much of the soil in the community is inadequate for gardening. It is a shallow and gravelly loam overlying caliche and gypsum. Small pockets of good calcareous loams are found in choice sites. Scattered caliche pits dot southwestern areas of West Odessa. In the 1990s water was supplied from wells and from county sources. Many residents considered their water to be only fair. In 1990 the population was 16,568. The population was 17,799 in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. Edwin Becht, A Population and Marketing Study of West Odessa (Odessa: Center for Business Research, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, 1985).

Julia Cauble Smith