Historic Midland

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Left: Elisha Hamilton Estes 7Z7
cattle. Mr. Estes, born 1849 in
Navarro County, brought his wife,
Caroline Lee, and their children to the
Midland area in 1884. 7Z7 was one
of the famous brands of that day.
Below, left: Troy Eiland came to
Midland in 1910 with his parents,
Edward Eason and Mary Ellen
Eiland. Troy worked for D. W.
Brunson as a cowboy and later
established his own ranch, the L7.
Garrett was able to obtain lumber from Pecos
and, according to a paper by W.L. Simmons presented
to the Midland Historical Society in
1963, “With the help of the construction crew
of the Texas and Pacific, a solid floor was laid on
the railroad bridge. Between trains they drove
the sheep over and were soon over and on their
way to Midland.”
Herding the sheep on foot was slow, and
Garrett and his companions did not reach the
land where Midland would develop until
December 2. They spent their first night there in
a location which later would become the first
location of First National Bank, a site now occupied
by the Oil and Gas Building.
Upon his arrival, Garrett found a man, C.C.
“Lum” Medlin, living at Mustang Springs, the
flowing water source located a few miles east of
what today is downtown Midland. Early-day
explorer Captain Randolph B. Marcy had discovered
Mustang Springs on his 1849 expedition
across the Llano Estacado and identified it
as an important water source for those crossing
the plains.
Medlin, 29 years of age, was a hunter who in
earlier years had lived on the buffalo trade, but,
by the time of Garrett’s arrival, the buffalo were
Below, right: At the corner of Missouri
and S. Baird is the site of early an
water well, Midland’s first, dug by
hand in 1884. It supplied water to the
entire town. The Official Historical
Marker for this well is erected in the
atrium of the Federal Building on
Wall St.
Midland: Land of Cowboys | 19