How Midland Became The Permian Basin's Capital

摘要

Midland was one of many small towns that dotted the West Texas landscape every 20 miles along the railroad,thanks to the worker camps that popped up during track construction.They became mostly ranching and farm towns until oil made some of them so much more.Midland had seen plenty of drilling,but it was looking for water for crops,livestock and people.Enough windmills dotted the town lots and farmsteads that Midland soon earned the nickname Windmill City.In the first years of the boom in the 1920s after the Santa Rita find and others in nearby counties,drilling in Midland County came up short.But forward-thinking businessmen provided amenities that surrounding boom-towns didn't have,establishing the city as the center of the Permian Basin oil enterprise for generations.