It continues traveling north through oil fields and rural ranch land.

25 miles north of Fort Stockton, SH 18 intersects Farm to Market Road 1450.

SH 18 continues in a slightly northwest direction toward Kermit, making an interchange with Farm to Market Road 1232 along the way.

On February 27, 1958, the route was again renumbered as SH 18, to coordinate with the connecting New Mexico Highway 18 to the north.

SH 18 was one of the first 25 Texas state routes proposed on June 21, 1917, overlaid on the Albany-Bronco Highway.

[2] The original proposal was a route through the Southern Plains from Bronco in Yoakum County to Lubbock, then southeast to Albany.

[13] It was to branch off from SH 18 in Brownfield, travel southeast to Lamesa, then run due east to Albany.

It is unknown if it had been built before being renumbered on August 21, 1923, as SH 83, with the section from Lamesa to Brownfield cancelled.