UT Permian Basin was created by the legislature in 1969 as an upper-level school for juniors, seniors and graduate students. Ground was broken in Odessa in April 1972, and the first classes met in 1973. The campus is young, but it holds a presidential museum and a near full-size limestone copy of Stonehenge that lines up with the West Texas sunrise. This short walk connects the original academic building, the library and its bronze buffalo, a memorial, and the stone circle.
UT Permian Basin dates only to 1969, when Texas lawmakers created it to serve upper-division and graduate students, and classes started in Odessa in 1973. A campus that young still manages a few real surprises.
The biggest is a limestone Stonehenge replica. An art professor and a partner built it in roughly six weeks in 2004 using stone from a Garden City quarry. It is as wide as the English original, a little shorter, and surveyed so its alignment works for an Odessa sunrise.
The Presidential Archives and Leadership Library brings national history to West Texas. It started as a community museum in 1965 and moved to the university in 2011. Look for a reproduction of the rug from Harry Truman's Oval Office and exhibits on the Bush family's time in Odessa in the late 1940s. The Mesa Building, the school's first permanent academic home, has a story of its own: its leaky terraces once forced a massive concrete tear-out, and a new renovation got underway in 2024. The walk also includes a memorial and some regional art, making for a short, offbeat outing with a payoff you won't find anywhere else in Texas.
The tour begins in Odessa. Open Texas Roam to follow the full route stop by stop, with directions and audio narration as you go.
It is a self-guided walking tour: 5 stops, about 2.9 miles, ~1.5 hours. Go at your own pace; the app keeps your place.
In Odessa, Texas. The exact starting point, the full stop list and turn-by-turn directions are in the TexasRoam app.
Download TexasRoam for iPhone or iPad from the App Store. The tour is included with TexasRoam+. It is not available on the web map.
Visit in daylight, ideally near sunrise or sunset when low light shows off the Stonehenge replica; check the Presidential Archives' open days if you want to go inside.
Texas Roam guides you turn by turn through Odessa with maps, audio narration and check-ins as you go — plus all 5 stops on this tour and every guided tour, hiking trail and historical marker across Texas. Get it on the App Store.
