ANOTHER WEST TEXAS summer day had reached into wilting triple digits, and Tom Rodman was standing at the 12th-floor window of downtown Odessa’s tallest building, silently gazing out at the parched landscape. “Out there,” he finally said, pointing toward a distant spot where the untrained eye sees nothing but ragged mesquite, wind-whipped dust devils, and the rhythmic movement of mechanical hobbyhorses pumping oil from deep beneath the Permian Basin.

Seven miles beyond the city limits, past the rows of Mexican restaurants, truck stops, and drill-equipment businesses, is a geographical wonder that has fascinated the 77-year-old oil and gas attorney since boyhood.

“Out there” is the Odessa Meteor Crater, the second-largest impact site in the United States, taking a backseat only to the famed and visually stunning Barringer Meteorite Crater, near Winslow, Arizona. In brag-crazy Texas, where second best of anything generally draws little more than a dismissive scoff, Rodman stubbornly stands as self-appointed promoter and caretaker of what he insists is a scientifically important locale and a must-see tourist attraction.

Family aside, the jagged, rock-strewn old crater is the love of Rodman’s life. It is because of his tireless efforts that the site is now recognized by the National Park Service as a national landmark and that a state-of-the-art museum now sits near the crater, hosting 10,000 visitors annually.

The energetic Rodman delights in recalling how things might have been more than 60,000 years ago, when a 300-pound piece of iron-rich stone flamed through the Earth’s atmosphere at 27,000 miles per hour and collided with a force that scientists estimate surpassed the energy created by the atomic bombs dropped during World War II.

“When I was a boy,” he says, “my father owned the ranch land that bordered the area where the crater is located. I spent a lot of time playing there, always saw it as a magical place. Back then, a large tree had grown in the base [of the crater], and I’d sit in its shade and try to imagine what this part of the world might have looked like back when the meteor hit.” And with that, he’s describing how this arid landscape was once verdant swampland instead of blowing sand and brush. In his mind’s eye, he can see the prehistoric mammoths and three-toed horses that once roamed this region now populated by jackrabbits, rattlesnakes, and pickup trucks.

It was not until 1929 that geologists determined the 175-yard-wide hole in the Ector County countryside was, indeed, a spot where 100,000 cubic pounds of limestone had been displaced by a meteor’s impact. The site, estimated to have previously been 100 feet deep, has changed with the passage of time. Although the crater’s rim is still distinctive, thousands of years of sand and silt have left the crater itself no deeper than many of the man-made gravel pits that pockmark the region.

According to local legend, a rancher discovered the crater in 1892. Later, another resident found a fist-size metallic rock in the area of the crater in 1920 and, thinking it an interesting oddity, gave it to his banker. It sat on the banker’s desk for several years until a visiting geologist saw it and suggested sending it to museum authorities for analysis. It was ultimately determined that the stone contained particles of iron, nickel, cobalt, and copper -- all components of a meteorite. In time, geologists and mining engineers would explore the area, convinced that a giant stone from the stars was buried beneath the layers of silt.

By the early 1940s, a shaft had been dug 165 feet deep into the heart of the crater, and long trenches were jack-hammered across the depression. Workers did unearth the fossilized remains of a mammoth and found hundreds of pounds of meteorite fragments. Scientists finally determined that the meteorite had shattered into millions of small pieces on its low-angle impact.

Today, visitors to the nearby museum can view many of those fragments, collected from as far as two miles away, and also stroll along a path that winds through the crater.

And more likely than not, they’ll bump into Rodman, still the dreamer, still fascinated by the history of his childhood playground.

“Dad’s enthusiasm for the crater has never diminished,” says Rodman’s 48-year-old lawyer son, Jimmy Rodman. “When my brothers and I were kids, he would take us out there and tell us the stories of what happened long, long ago. His dedication to its preservation is amazing.”

Texas state representative, the late George “Buddy” West, who successfully lobbied for the $500,000 appropriation that made the Odessa Meteor Crater Museum a reality, agrees with Jimmy Rodman. “I first visited the crater when I was a 12-year-old Cub Scout,” he recalls. “It has been Tom Rodman’s lifelong dream, his vision, to call attention to this landmark."

“It just took the rest of us a while to catch up with him.”

The Odessa Meteor Crater is located west of Odessa, Texas, at Exit 108 off Interstate 20, a half-hour drive from the Midland International Airport. The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to five p.m. and Sundays from one to five p.m. Admission is free.