Brit Webb’s Tales of Old Marfa
Brit Webb in his office at the
tire shop on San Antonio
Street in Marfa. Behind him
are pictures of his brothers,
from left, Harold, Gerald and
Bascome.
Photo credit: Luc Novovitch
by Barbara Novovitch
T
hese days Brit Webb
repairs tires and service
vehicles at 317 San
Antonio Street in Marfa, and if
you care to inquire, he can hold
you spellbound with tales of West
Texas and the ‘old Marfa’ of the
mid-to-late 20th century, before
the town was discovered by mini-
malist artists and big-city televi-
sion crews.
In 1945 Brit joined his older
brothers Harold, Bascome and
Gerald, who in 1939 had left the
family farm in Clyde, Texas and
found work building West Texas
airfields. Brit quit school at age
14 and came to Marfa a year
later; his brothers put him to
work repairing ranch vehicles.
“They had bought a Gulf sta-
tion down there on the corner (at
the red light in downtown Marfa)
and also sold Studebakers –
they’ve made a pizza parlor out of
it today. We had that for 37 years.
I worked there for them – the war
was still on.”
The two oldest Webb brothers
also had a wrecking service and
8
did body work at buildings across
San Antonio Street that had been
part of Fort D.A. Russell. These
they later sold to minimalist artist
Donald Judd, who moved to
Marfa from New York in 1979
and spurred the creation of the
Chinati Foundation.
All the Webb youngsters grew up
on a 120-acre farm between Clyde
and Baird, near Abilene. “We grew
cotton, peanuts and kids,” Brit
recalled. “Eight boys and six girls – I
was number 10 of 14 children.”
The Webbs had come to Texas
from Mississippi after the Civil
War, said Brit, where his great-
grandfather had been a teacher
and secretary of state. “But
everybody was wiped out after
that war and the family moved to
Callahan county,” he said. His
father Edmund then suffered a
stroke, and the older sons went
out to look for work.
“Bascome approached me
about going to high school when I
first came here – I told him I’d be
21 when I got out. He said,
you’re going to be 21 anyway. I
Cenizo
First Quarter 2013
thought about that; it made good
sense.”
His brothers agreed that Brit
could work weekends and holi-
days, and although he hadn’t fin-
ished grade school, the Marfa
school principal said he could
start as a freshman. “I had sum-
mer school in Alpine, so I went
through in three years.”
College didn’t interest him imme-
diately. He joined the Air Force for
four years, serving 18 months in
Japan, and while stationed in Sacra -
mento, California, he met and mar-
ried a Uni versity of Northern Colo -
rado graduate, an Iowa girl. His
bride, Laurel, taught home econom-
ics. When they returned to Marfa
after his military service he signed up
at Sul Ross and successfully pursued
a B.A. in education.
During the next 30 years he
taught or supervised the educa-
tion of thousands of West Texas
youngsters.
“The superintendent in Marfa
talked me into taking the fifth
grade after I got out of Sul Ross.
The next year I went to the junior
high and taught juniors and
coached grade school girls’ vol-
leyball.” The year after that he
became the Marfa high school
principal.
“Of course I had some of the
same kids in fifth, sixth, and seventh
through ninth grade – they said,
don’t worry about it, we’ll all go to
different colleges. I still have a
bunch of those kids as my cus-
tomers today,” he said with a smile.
After five years at Marfa, he
became
superintendent
in
Valentine for 11 years, principal
at Van Horn for three years, and
spent five years at Buena Vista in
Imperial, as principal and super-
intendent. “My last school job
was
Talpa-Centennial,
near
Ballinger.”
When he returned to Marfa
after a quarter-century, his
younger brother Bill had bought a
Texaco station, and Brit decided
to take it over.
“I was going to do this for two
years, while my two youngest kids
graduated from high school. I’ve
been here 25 years – my two years