Midland

Midland is a city in West Texas, in the Permian Basin on the high plains between Fort Worth and El Paso. The name marks its place halfway between those two cities on the Texas and Pacific Railway.

The railway built a station on the plain in 1881, and ranchers bought land around it for cattle. Oil was found in the Permian Basin in the 1920s, and Midland became the business center of the oil fields, with banks and offices for the companies working in the region. Its tall office buildings, rising from the flat plain, gave it the nickname Tall City. Jim Hall, the racing driver, built his Chaparral race cars in Midland. George W. Bush grew up in the city, and Laura Bush, his wife, was born there.

Oil and natural gas from the wells of the Permian Basin are the main products of the region, and the drilling and service work for its fields is run from offices in Midland. Cattle ranches still cover much of the land between the oil fields.

The Permian Basin Petroleum Museum shows the geology of the basin and old drilling rigs in a yard outside, along with Hall's Chaparral cars. The George W. Bush Childhood Home, a small house of the 1950s, is kept as a museum of the family. The Museum of the Southwest holds art and a planetarium in a mansion of the 1930s. The Midland RockHounds play minor league baseball at a ballpark on the east side of the city. The I-20 Wildlife Preserve protects a playa lake where cranes and ducks stop on migration.