A dusty desert oil town, in the heart of Texas, is an unlikely place for a monument to Shakespeare. Even locals admit that this former tent city, known for its oil wells and once-rough living, was traditionally something of a cultural desert.

Yet all that changed 32 years ago when the world's first authentic memorial to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre opened in the heart of Odessa town. The Globe of the Great Southwest, as it is known, predates the new Globe on London's South Bank by decades.

This little-known replica of the famous playhouse was opened in 1968 after a local English literature teacher - and lifelong Shakespeare enthusiast - got fed up living in the artistic wasteland that was her home town. Marjorie Morris, who taught in Odessa College, had written her doctorate thesis on Shakespeare's Globe and had spent time in London and Stratford-upon-Avon searching for contemporary accounts of the theatre.

Each year, she set her students a project to build their own miniature model Globe, based on details published in her doctoral research. On one occasion, so the story goes, a student asked her why Odessa couldn't build its own full-size Globe? This, as current artistic director Anthony Ridley explains, sparked off Morris's own "Build the Globe" campaign.

"It took 10 years for Marjorie to get the necessary funds to complete the building of the theatre," he says. "She didn't want to go into debt, so construction stopped when she ran out of money. Only when she'd raised more did the builders continue. It was a long process, but the building was completely paid for by the time it was finished."

Morris built the Globe on donated land next to Odessa College. She used her own research notes to construct as authentic a memorial as possible. Even the same building materials that would have been part of the Elizabethan original were used, despite their unsuitability for Odessa's spring sandstorms and summer heat.

At first, the octagonal amphitheatre had no seats - imitating the groundling area - and no roof. However, after a number of years, Morris raised extra funds to keep the 400-strong audience more in the manner that they were accustomed to. She put in seats and built a roof to protect them from the sometimes harsh Texan elements.

Morris, who is still alive at 96, also reproduced the playhouse's traditional balcony set and put a trapdoor on the stage. "The finished building is as close to the Globe of 1599, in terms of building and stage dimensions, as possible. But the seating area is obviously different and we have a roof," explains Ridley.

Constant in her devotion to the Bard, Morris later managed to raise more funds to build a replica of Anne Hathaway's cottage, which opened in 1988. Located next to the Globe of the Great Southwest, the cottage resembles the Stratford-upon-Avon original but comes with handy modern additions, including a fitted kitchen and mosquito nets on the windows.

Homage to Morris's vision is paid in the theatre's foyer, where a painting of the teacher in Elizabethan dress hangs next to a bronze bust of Shakespeare himself. But unlike its more acclaimed London cousin, which attracts Shakespeare buffs from across the world, the Texas Globe is struggling. Because of the Lone Star State's severe weather conditions, the board of trustees which runs the Globe says it urgently needs £600,000 to carry out renovations.

"Not many people know about us, but our Globe was the first to be built and the first to pay homage to Shakespeare's great theatre," says Ridley. "We are appealing to everyone who has an interest not only in Shakespeare, but in quality theatre, to donate funds so we can keep the Globe of the Great Southwest going."

Currently, the vast majority of the Globe's plays are amateur productions. But Ridley, who took up his post as artistic director last month, is planning to use more professional actors and wants to stage an annual Shakespeare festival.

The Globe's trustees also want to plant a typical English garden in the grounds, which would help offset the theatre's rather austere location next to the college parking lot and surrounded by a concrete wall.

Ann Wilson, an Odessa local and one of the Globe's administrators, says: "The theatre has been enormously important for this town. Outsiders used to look down on us because this was an oil place and had nothing in the way of the arts.

"Ever since the Globe opened, though, masses of volunteers have helped out and we've really gone up in the world. Because now we have our own Texan version of great culture."