Historic Odessa Sign Gets Re-purposed as Art

A sign that has been in Odessa since the 1950's is getting a more artful purpose.

According to the Midland Reporter-Telegram, the former Cloth World sign that has been in Odessa for decades is now an art project come to fruition for Odessa Arts Executive Director Randy Ham.

“In 2014, we commissioned a Public Art Master Plan for the city of Odessa,” Ham said. “During the research of that, we did a lot of community input meetings where we invited the public to tell us what they wanted to see in a public art program for Odessa. In almost every single meeting we went to, somebody asked if something could be done with the Cloth World tower.”

The sign is so old that no drawings for it were found by the city of Odessa. Originally built as a sign for the Rock Hills Springs Shopping Center and built in the late 50's or early 60's, it later became the infamous sign for Cloth World when they moved into the shopping center in the 1970's.

Now known as the Odessa Spire, it will now be a public work of art that has been five years in the making.