White pool house
The White Pool House is a historic building in Odessa , Texas . It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been open to the public since 1984. A large part of the interior is original. Temporary exhibitions take place in the house.
The two-story brick building is located east of central Odessa at 112 East Murphy Street. Charles White had it built in 1887; Oso Pool bought it in 1923; it is the oldest building still in existence in the city.
The rooms in the White Pool House reflect two significant periods of local history. First, the 1880s, when the house was built during the pioneering days and the White family moved into it, and second, the 1930s, when the building was the home of the pool family during the oil boom. At the rear of the house are a windmill , barn and other farm buildings, as well as a toilet block built from hand-hewn blocks that dates from the time the main house was built. Horse-drawn farm equipment is permanently on display in the barn.
The White era
Charles White, his wife Lucy and their two sons Wilfred and Herbert came from Indiana to Odessa, the seat of Ector County, and belonged to the Quaker denomination .
Lucy was in poor health and was forced to live in a dry climate. Her husband's Indiana wheat trade had collapsed due to economic pressures in the decades following the War of Civilizations. The railroad company sold land in Ector County, so the Whites came to Odessa to start a new existence here. Charles and Wilfred ran a convenience store at the intersection of Third and North Grant Streets. Charles also planted an orchard of peaches and apricots. The windmill was the heart of the irrigation system . He also grew sorghum , cotton, and vegetables .
White bought a lot near the railroad tracks for $ 870 and is building the Victorian- style home. In 1890 Wilfred White was appointed only the second postmaster of Odessa, and a year later the citizens elected him to be the county inspector.
Charles White died on June 14, 1905. Following the death of Charles, Lucy and Herbert White relocated to Mineral Wells , Palo Pinto County , east Texas.
The pool era
After Lucy and Herbert White moved away, Wilfred sold the house. It changed hands several times until it was finally acquired by Oso Pool in 1923.
Four years later, in 1927, petroleum was discovered in the Permian Basin , and the steady influx of immigrants to Odessa resulted in a housing shortage . Pool therefore converted the house into an apartment block with five apartments, adding additional bathrooms and dividing the rooms. Pool lived on the ground floor and rented the space upstairs. Over the next fifty years the house was passed down between family members, but his general condition deteriorated.
Eventually, Pool ceded the house and six acres of land to Ector County on June 12, 1978 on condition of conservation. It was restored between 1979 and 1984, and in 1986 the nonprofit White-Pool House Friends was created to fund the preservation of the house's historical legacy.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ White-Pool House ( English ) travel.yahoo.com. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
- ↑ a b White-Pool House ( English ) white-poolhouse.org. Archived from the original on July 28, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
- ↑ Glenn Justice ,: White-Pool House ( English ) In: Odessa, An Illustrated History . Retrieved April 25, 2012.
- ↑ White-Pool House ( English ) Archived from the original on July 28, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
