Kermit is on the Texas-New Mexico Railway and Hwys 18, 302, 703, and 115, seven miles northwest of Wink in central Winkler County.
It began as a supply center for the scattered ranches of the area, and became county seat in 1910.
The town moved the last working wooden derrick in the Permian Basin from Loving County to Pioneer Park in Kermit in 1966 as a symbol of the importance of the oil industry to the economy of Kermit and Winkler County. In the 1970s and 1980s the population of Kermit bounced between 8,500 and 6,912, and the number of businesses moved between 200 and 116. Improvements were made in city services, and more housing additions were built. The 1990 United States census set the population of Kermit at 6,875.