A Texas/Arizona Road Trip 2.1 - Odessa, Texas

Day 2 of this trip found me leaving Midland, Texas, on a very chilly late October morning and traveling a short 20 miles to Odessa where I had imagined I would view Texas' most famous Post Office Mural, a depiction of a longhorn stampede painted by Tom Lea, a well-known West Texas artist.  The latest reference I had found about it indicated it was still located at the Odessa Post Office but when I arrived, the post office was still closed and it was not in the lobby so I surmised it must have been moved to the counter area.  I thought I may have arrived on a holiday because that area of the post office was still locked up but people were bustling about retrieving mail from post office boxes.  I asked a woman why the post office was closed and she looked at me like I was from an alien planet and replied, "It doesn't open until 9!"  All the post offices I had ever visited in my entire life always opened at 8 a.m. so I was beginning to think I had slept through another time zone or perhaps been transported into the future.

I took a short drive around downtown Odessa, found little of interest (it's just a typical West Texas oil town in the heart of the Permian Basin) and returned to the post office where a line was forming of people waiting for the clerk area to be unlocked.  As I made my way inside - you guessed it.  No mural.  And my morning had already been sufficiently delayed and I had many, many miles ahead of me so I didn't waste any more time standing in line to find out what had happened to the mural.  

But on my way out of town I saw a glimpse of this beauty painted on the long wall of a building.  It is 100 feet long so I took photos of it section by section to be able to show some detail.

After returning from Arizona and looking for information about this piece I learned that this mural was painted just this year by Janet Pontious, a noted muralist in the Midland/Odessa area.

The mural is a replica of a July 4, 1912, photograph of a photographer taking a photograph of Odessa residents in the main portion of the city.

It appears that the townsfolk turned out in their best duds for the event and I think it's a great representation of America during that time before the First World War.

And yes, cowboys still found ways to earn a living in 1912.  I was particularly fascinated by the fact that every single person in the photograph and painting had on a hat!  The mural is indeed 100 feet long and 17 feet high.

While searching the Internet for some information on this mural I ran across one article in an Odessa newspaper that mentioned the Tom Lea mural had been removed for restoration in January of this year and had been returned to Odessa just a week before I arrived where it will be on loan to a local art museum for the next 25 years.  I'm glad it's back in Odessa but I'm still disappointed that I missed it!  Darn it!