The oil came in 1923. On May 28, out on University of Texas land in Reagan County southeast of town, the Santa Rita No. 1 — named by its crew for the patroness of impossible causes after four hard years of drilling — blew in and revealed what the Permian Basin held. Midland made itself the boom's headquarters: rather than the rigs and roughnecks of the field, it drew the offices, the geologists, the landmen, and the executives, and by 1929 thirty-six oil companies ran their Permian operations from downtown. Where blue-collar Odessa, twenty miles west, worked the field, white-collar Midland ran the business — two cities, one basin, a partnership written into West Texas ever since.
Our Midland logo carries a Texas longhorn — the breed that worked this range before the derricks — and a Lone Star over "1845," the year of statehood and the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Texas place. Printed black-and-white with the worn look of a branding iron or a stockyard sign, the longhorn and star read as Texas in shorthand: cattle country, the Lone Star, the open West Texas horizon. What makes this one Midland is the place behind it — the Tall City, the Permian Basin, the wildcatter's gamble, and the skyline standing up off the plains.
Why People Visit Midland Texas
- Tour the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum, with interactive galleries on the geology and engineering of the oil boom and a replica 1930s Boom Town.
- Visit the Museum of the Southwest, combining art, science, and a children's museum on a historic estate.
- Walk the downtown Tall City core to see the high-rise skyline that rises straight off the plains.
- See the Bush Family Home, a Texas Historical Commission state historic site in a 1940s neighborhood.
- Catch a performance at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center, the region's marquee venue.
