First Post Office in Midland
Midland, Midland County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When first post office opened here Jan. 4, 1884, with Charles H. Welch as postmaster, settlers proposed to name the town Midway, because it was halfway between Ft. Worth and El Paso. Finding that another post office in Texas had that name, they chose Midland instead. Site of the first post office was 108 East Missouri, location of main loading dock of the current facility. Postal headquarters moved four times before returning to the original site upon completion of the new federal building (1974). Midland Post Office now serves a region of 32,000 square miles. (1974)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Midland's first post office opened on January 4, 1884, with Charles H. Welch as postmaster, settlers wanted to call the town Midway because it stood halfway between Fort Worth and El Paso. Learning that name was already taken, they settled on Midland instead. The office moved four times before returning in 1974 to its original site at 108 East Missouri, by which point it served a postal region of some 32,000 square miles.
Why it matters
The post office gave Midland both its name and its lifeline to the wider nation, illustrating how mail service anchored isolated railroad towns of the West.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Charles H. Welch
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Early Water Well
Midland, TX
Before 1884, the young town of Midland had to ship its drinking water fifty miles by rail from Monahans — a costly, precarious lifeline on the arid Staked Plains. That year residents dug this well by hand, six feet across and fifty feet deep, and fitted it with a pump and a trough that watered both townspeople and their cattle. For a spell it supplied the entire community, turning a rail-dependent camp into a place that could stand on its own.
Midland County
Midland, TX
Midland sits where old cattle trails once crossed and where, tradition holds, the last Comanche raid into Texas passed. The Texas and Pacific Railroad reached the spot in 1881, and its position halfway between El Paso and Fort Worth gave the town its name. Sheep and Hereford cattle came first, then farmers drawn by windmill-pumped water—until the 1928 Permian Basin oil discovery made Midland the headquarters of a booming petroleum empire.
Midland County
Midland, TX
Midland County was created and organized in 1885, its name drawn from its position roughly halfway between Fort Worth and El Paso on the Texas and Pacific Railway — it was first called Midway. The railroad brought the settlers and commerce that gave the county life on the arid plains of West Texas. Midland would grow into a hub of the region.
Marcy Trail
Midland, TX
In 1849 an Army expedition under Captain Randolph B. Marcy, guided by a Comanche man named Manuel, crossed the dreaded Llano Estacado of West Texas and proved the staked plains could be traveled. The route Marcy plotted from Doña Ana to Fort Smith became a shorter road to the California gold fields, later carried the overland stage, and by 1881 guided the Texas and Pacific Railroad. This marker stands near that pioneering path.