As its name suggests, Big Spring originated at a spring in a gorge of the Caprock Escarpment. The spring was frequented by overland explorers, cattle drovers, and squatters, but it only achieved a degree of prosperity when the Texas and Pacific Railway built through the site in 1881 and established its primary railroad shops here midway between Fort Worth and El Paso, which lie six hundred miles apart. Near the tracks at 122 S. Main, the two-story former State National Bank Building (1909) is a classic, turn-of-the-twentieth-century small-town Texan bank building, built of brick and trimmed with limestone, and has a chamfered corner entrance. Glass block insertions date from a 1934 remodeling.
The discovery of oil in 1926 brought prosperity to Big Spring, and it became a headquarters for oil industry businesses. Notable among the newer buildings are the Howard County Library (former First Federal Savings and Loan Association) of 1962 by Schmidt and Stuart at 500 S. Main, with its distinctive, randomly pierced solar screen, and the gently Brutalist former Big Springs Savings (1970, Gary and Hohertz) at number 610. Beginning in the 1960s, Big Spring’s financial institutions began to migrate from the historic downtown, which today is studded with parking lots where significant buildings once stood. Nevertheless, the town’s continuing identification with the energy industry is apparent on the approach from the east on I-20, for the Big Spring Refinery, founded in 1929 by Cosden Oil Company (today Alon USA), still dominates the landscape.
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