Midland, TX, with a population of 135,000, plus or minus, lives, eats, and breathes oil. The city was founded as a midpoint of the railroad line between Dallas and El Paso, and was a cattle ranching hub until 1923 when Santa Rita No 1 came in, spraying oil for 250 yards.
Investors had ponyed up $200 apiece to drill just over 3,000 feet, and after 646 days of pounding with a state of the art cable tool rig, they began to see gas bubbles escaping from the well head. Frank Pickerell had purchased the lease and equipment for $2500, and saw success bubbling up. He ordered drilling stopped and quickly bought neighboring leases before the news got out. Hours later, without further drilling, the wildcat well named for the saint of the impossible blew a new world into existence.
Midland is, understandably, home to the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum. With an extensive outdoor display of drilling rigs and pump jacks, we were immediately overwhelmed with the variety of equipment that has been used over time in “the patch.”
From small to large, this museum has it all!
Inside the wonderfully air conditioned museum, the displays begin with the origin of oil 250 million years ago when this was a deep sea teeming with life that lived and died and formed deep layers carbon that, with pressure and time formed pockets of oil.
Without going into the people, equipment, and demand that created the oil industry in Texas, I will only say that the museum admirably covers every aspect of the complicated world of oil. Chemistry, geology, high tech equipment, AI technology, investment and rate of return along with the blood, the mud, and the beer that makes the wheels turn here. Touring this museum is an amazing and thoroughly enjoyable experience for the whole family.
We ended our tour admiring a detailed model of a drill rig from the ‘20’s.
It was a great visit to a thriving metropolis that is not only protecting a natural resource, but monitoring and husbanding its use.
We could spend a great deal more time in this area where Midland is the sophisticated older brother with a white shirt and Odessa is the younger brother with dirty jeans and a scab on his nose. We haven’t had a chance to explore the restaurant scene here or shop at local markets, so we’ll have to come back!
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