Historic Midland

judge, and half an hour later Midland County’s
16 legal citizens “and three or four Mexican
sheepherders, saddle horses, etc. had voted and
Midland County was declared an established
fact, and sovereign within her confines.”
Midland County was formally organized on
March 25, 1885, and its first officers were E.B.
Lancaster, Judge; Theo Ray, Sheriff; T.B. Wadley,
Treasurer; and A.B. Rountree, Clerk.
Midway’s first years were marked by tremendous
growth. A post office was established while
the area was still part of Tom Green County (San
Angelo) and some settlers were already thinking
about creating their own county. When application
was made for a post office, it was learned
that another community in Texas named
Midway had already claimed that name. So the
community’s name was changed to Midland.
With that problem remedied, Charles H. Welch
was sworn in as Midland’s first postmaster on
January 4, 1884.
Wadley, who had come to Midland when the
community consisted of only the section house,
the Town Company’s office and a nearby shanty,
had opened the first lumber yard in Midland in
1883, offering a means for the first residents to
move out of their dugout houses into plank
houses and for businesses to begin developing.
After the Town Company won the election, it
immediately donated $3,000 for a courthouse.
The first courthouse built was a frame structure
that served Midland until 1905. Included in the
deal for the courthouse were 10 acres for a
cemetery. In 1905, a three-story building constructed
of Pecos red sandstone was built at a
cost of $26,000 and served as the county courthouse
until 1929.
Early in Midland’s existence, businesses started
to develop. Herman Klapproth opened the
first saddle shop. Soon, the town’s businesses
also included Stallings Hardware, McCullough
Grocery and Palmer Drug Store. The first stores
were located on Baird Street north of the Texas
& Pacific Railroad tracks, but they later were
moved to Abilene Street, which later became
Main Street following a flood.
During 1886 and 1887 a drought parched
the community, but in 1888 came the flood.
Businesses that were constructed of native
adobe literally melted in the floodwaters, and
their goods were lost.
Newnie Ellis began selling caskets out of the
back of his drug store, a move that led him to
become the city’s first mortician.
Yet Midland seemed destined to grow
because, as Watson put it, “it was, and is, the
center of the greatest section for open range cattle
breeding that is known to the livestock
industry…. The Texas Legislature had, about
the time or soon after the organization of
Midland County, passed the ‘Absolute Lease
Law,’ giving stockmen a 10-year absolute lease
on designated holdings at 3 cents per acre per
annum, and the open, unfenced range was a
thing of the past. The railroads, owning alternate
sections under grants from the State, gave
the stockmen the same absolute rights as did the
State, and it was not long before the whole
country was fenced and cross-fenced, and made
into such pastures as would promote the best
results in ranching.
“This progressive step, of course, advanced
the cattle industry immeasurably. The tradition-
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Above: American Railway Express
dray wagon, about 1920. The driver
is Percy Mims, a member of a
prominent early Midland family.
Below: Midland County Courthouse,
built in 1905. The tower in the
background on the left housed the
city’s first fire bell.
Early Midland: City of Windmills | 27