Ernest Malapert Powell, a native of Illinois, worked as a surveyor and railroad engineer in Kentucky before moving to Texas in 1874. During the railroad construction boom in Texas in the 1870s, he worked as a surveyor and accepted parcels of land as payment for his services. By 1878, Powell and his partner, E. L. Gage, had opened a real estate and land surveying company in Dallas. He soon promoted his land holdings in West Texas and placed newspaper advertisements to encourage settlement there. To the first families who purchased homesteads from his 185,000-acre tract in present Crockett County, he offered forty acres of free land and reduced prices on additional acreage. The city of Ozona was founded on his property, where he provided a public well and windmill and donated lots for public buildings, churches, and a school. Through these settlement efforts, Crockett County was organized in 1891 with Ozona as the county seat. Married to the former Mary Almyra Durrell, Powell was the father of one son, Durrell, who died at age seven, and he was also a major contributor to the Dallas Congregational Church and other charities.