This Week in Odessa History

There were great plans 76 years ago in late November 1935, for the rabbit drive to be held in the Irby area, which was expected to draw hundreds of Spokane sportsmen.

Rabbit drives had been held since Odessa’s earliest days. Rabbits were pests, and throughout the 20th Century they posed a problem because they ate crops and spread disease.

The 1935 drive was set for December 8, west of Odessa, in an area bounded by Batum Road on the east, a point one mile west of Irby Road in the west and the North Central highway (now Highway 28, which has been rebuilt and is relocated several yards to the sou...