A section house at the midway point became the oil capital of the richest basin in America — a city of geologists and gamblers where the towers stand up off the flat land like a bet that keeps paying. From the derricks on the horizon to the big West Texas sky, Midland, Texas is where the skyline rises straight out of the plains and the whole town runs on what is buried beneath it. Wear a little of the Tall City wherever the road takes you.
Midland began as a dot on a timetable. In late June 1881 the Texas & Pacific Railway, building its line between Dallas and El Paso, put down a section house at the halfway point on the Llano Estacado — the high, flat, semi-arid "staked plains" — and called it Midway Station. Herman N. Garrett, a sheep rancher who drove his herd out from California in 1882, became the first permanent resident. Texas already had other Midways, so when the settlement won a post office in January 1884 it took a new name to get it: Midland. A land company promoted the townsite across the Midwest, Midland County was organized in March 1885 with the young town as its seat, and by 1890 Midland was one of the state's important cattle-shipping points — ranch country at nearly 2,800 feet, incorporated as a city in 1906.
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.
