A Short History of the Permian Basin

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 23:40:53 GMT

How Permian rock, a 1923 gusher, and a fracking boom built Odessa and Midland

Drive any direction out of Odessa and you'll see them — pumpjacks nodding away in the mesquite, some of them older than the highways you're driving on. If you grew up in the Permian Basin area, you wouldn't think twice about it. But if you're new to West Texas, it's worth knowing why this town exists at all, because the answer is sitting a mile and a half under your feet.

It Starts With the Rock

The Permian Basin gets its name from the Permian-age rock layers beneath it — some of the thickest deposits of their kind anywhere on the planet. Trapped inside that rock are enormous reserves of oil and natural gas, sealed off across several connected sub-basins. Geologists split the region into the Midland Basin to the east, the Delaware Basin to the west, and the smaller Marfa Basin down south. Midland and Odessa sit right on top of the action.

For a number of years, none of that mattered until someone drilled a hole!

Santa Rita No. 1

The first commercial well in the basin came in near Westbrook in 1921, but the well everybody remembers is the Santa Rita No. 1. On May 28, 1923, it blew in on a dusty patch of Reagan County — land owned by the University of Texas that most people considered worthless.

Turns out it wasn't. Royalties from that well and the fields that followed built the Permanent University Fund, which still bankrolls Texas universities a century later. The Santa Rita itself kept pumping until 1990. Not bad for a well drilled on land nobody wanted.

As you can imagine, word traveled fast. By 1928, Midland had claimed its spot as the white-collar oil capital — the offices, the banks, the geologists. Odessa became the muscle: the crews, the rigs, the supply yards, the machine shops that kept everything turning. That split personality still defines the two cities today, and honestly, it's part of the charm.

Boom, Bust, Repeat

The Depression slowed things down. World War II cranked them back up — the country needed fuel, and drillers pushed deeper into the basin, finding new fields and new formations along the way.

From there, the Permian lived and died by the price of a barrel. Boom years packed the towns; bust years emptied them. If you have lived in Odessa and the Permian Basin area long enough, understand the Boom, Bust, and Repeat cycle. This cycle is baked into the character of West Texas — people here work hard, adapt fast, and don't take the good years for granted.

The Shale Revival

The chapter we're living in now started in the 2000s. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing unlocked oil that older methods couldn't touch, and the Permian roared back to become the largest oil-producing region in the United States.

That revival is why the hotels fill up, why the restaurants stay busy, and why we meet so many of the people we do — engineers on six-month assignments, oilfield crews rotating through, corporate teams flying in from Houston, families relocating for a new job. A lot of them need more than a hotel room. They need a real place to land: a full kitchen, a washer and dryer, a quiet street, room to breathe after a 12-hour shift.

Why Basin Stays Exists

That's us. One of the owners comes with a background in the hotel industry. Covid really did a number on hotel occupancy and the way people want to work, lodge, and do business has changed significantly. We have hosted families where wives were able to travel with their husbands because a short term rental was available. Hotels are great, but cannot address all a family's needs like a short term rental in Midland and Odessa, TX. We host the people who power the Permian Basin, and we're honored to do it. Our rentals in Odessa are fully furnished and set up for working stays — whether that's a week, a month, or a whole project rotation.

Heading to Odessa for work? Explore our fully furnished rentals, and when you get a free afternoon, check out our guide to the best things to do in Odessa and Midland. There's more out here than pumpjacks — but the pumpjacks are why we're all here.