Odessa, Ector County
Born 1835 in Alabama. Moved to north Texas before the Civil War, in which he served as a Confederate. After his wife died in 1874, he went to the Texas frontier to hunt Buffalo, taking his three young children with him. In 1881-1882 he supplied game to Texas & Pacific Railroad construction crews. (Such hunting was important to development of west Texas and to transcontinental railroad construction.) Settling later in Odessa, Sublett built near this site a dugout-and-tent home, and homesteaded a 160 acre claim. To support his family, he hauled wood and "water-witched" to locate wells for settlers. In the 1880's he attracted notice by using gold nuggets to trade for supplies. In explanation, he said an Apache Indian had directed him to a mine in the Guadalupe Mountains, about 150 miles west of here. Periodically he disappeared and returned with gold, but efforts to follow him to the mine always failed. He once took his young son there, but the boy could not find the way later. in 1889, Sublett sold his Ector County property. He died Jan. 6, 1892, in Barstow, without disclosing the location of his mine. However, stories of his treasure still lure explorers into the Guadalupe Mountains. 1967