Current Exhibitions
From Plans to Planes and Petroleum: Midland During World War II
This exhibition opened in March, 2019. The exhibit includes reproductions of Midland Reporter-Telegram newspapers from the years 1941-1945 allowing visitors to discover details of wartime life for themselves. Prints of local photographs, multi-media features, and historical items from the time immerse visitors in the look and sound of the era.
This exhibition opened in March, 2019. The exhibit includes reproductions of Midland Reporter-Telegram newspapers from the years 1941-1945 allowing visitors to discover details of wartime life for themselves. Prints of local photographs, multi-media features, and historical items from the time immerse visitors in the look and sound of the era.
Paleo Midland
This small exhibition opened in November 2019 and documents the story of the prehistoric skull found in 1953 - that of a woman who turned out to be nine to twelve-thousand years old. Learn about the discovery and the excitement as the oldest North American skull at the time, as well as its subsequent history in connection with Midland and the Museum. See what the Llano Estacado region was like during this ancient time and a replica of the skull!
This small exhibition opened in November 2019 and documents the story of the prehistoric skull found in 1953 - that of a woman who turned out to be nine to twelve-thousand years old. Learn about the discovery and the excitement as the oldest North American skull at the time, as well as its subsequent history in connection with Midland and the Museum. See what the Llano Estacado region was like during this ancient time and a replica of the skull!
Sea of Grass: Midland and The West Texas Frontier
The elimination of the vast buffalo herds, destruction of Native American groups in western Texas by 1876 and the 1881 construction of the Texas and Pacific Railway across Texas encouraged enterprising pioneers to push into the region to take advantage of the vast, uninhabited grasslands. First sheep, then large cattle herds, grazed sprawling expanses of open range.
Communities such as Midland developed along the T and P route, serving as shipping and supply points for this growing empire. In the second half of the 1880s, blizzards, droughts, and depressed beef prices broke all the small cattle outfits. Fences and the arrival of purebred cattle changed the cattle business and ended the open range days. Those who adapted to the new rules of the range became successful .
The decade of the 1890s brought the arrival of farmers as land sales fueled a mass migration into the region. Farming expanded in the Midland area for the next twenty years, encouraged by the drilling of irrigation wells.
By 1920, droughts, economic fluctuations, a world war, and a pandemic had ended the agricultural boom. Small towns, ranch headquarters, homesteads, windmills, and fences defined the new horizon across the sea of grass.
The elimination of the vast buffalo herds, destruction of Native American groups in western Texas by 1876 and the 1881 construction of the Texas and Pacific Railway across Texas encouraged enterprising pioneers to push into the region to take advantage of the vast, uninhabited grasslands. First sheep, then large cattle herds, grazed sprawling expanses of open range.
Communities such as Midland developed along the T and P route, serving as shipping and supply points for this growing empire. In the second half of the 1880s, blizzards, droughts, and depressed beef prices broke all the small cattle outfits. Fences and the arrival of purebred cattle changed the cattle business and ended the open range days. Those who adapted to the new rules of the range became successful .
The decade of the 1890s brought the arrival of farmers as land sales fueled a mass migration into the region. Farming expanded in the Midland area for the next twenty years, encouraged by the drilling of irrigation wells.
By 1920, droughts, economic fluctuations, a world war, and a pandemic had ended the agricultural boom. Small towns, ranch headquarters, homesteads, windmills, and fences defined the new horizon across the sea of grass.
