Midland-Odessa

There's more to the story, however. In 1880 the Texas and Pacific Railroad decided it was high time to construct a railroad from Marshall, Texas, near the Louisiana border, clear through to El Paso by way of the vast Llano Estacado—a land far, far away from all metropolitan areas (and also from water, buildings, and civilization in general). (Llano Estacado means staked plains. It's been known as the Llano ever since conquistadors placed wooden markers in the ground here so they could find their way back through this seemingly endless region.)

By 1881, railroad workers had reached the site now known as Odessa, and founded the town. Rumor and legend have it that the town's name was a bit of a joke. Russian railroad workers surveyed the stark, flat-as-a-pancake desert covered with scrub and cactus and decided, snidely, to name it Odessa, after a famous and beautifully wooded resort area in the Ukraine. Halfway between Dallas and El Paso, the town of Midland was founded in the same year and in a similar fashion, but named without the sarcasm.

When oil was discovered in the 1920s, it brought in workers by the thousands, and, later, the tens of thousands. From those origins grew two closely related, highly populated cities that, as all twins must, developed distinctly different personalities. During the three huge oil booms of the 1950s, 1970s, and now the '00s (naughts), Midland got, and maintained, a reputation as the white-collar, well-groomed twin, while Odessans have steeped themselves in a blue-collar, rough and rowdy culture. Midland got the skyscrapers and the nickname "The Tall City," while Odessa got the nightlife, the university, and the rodeo. Both got to host presidents 41 and 43.

Both cities have a lot to offer in terms of theater, museums, shopping, and culture—from rodeos and barn dances to lively Mexican events like the Ballet Folklorico, Fiesta West Texas, Cinco de Mayo, and Diez y Seis de Septiembre, as well as mariachi competitions. There's also a richly entrenched Tex-Mex cuisine tradition that will make it hard to eat Mexican food anywhere else.