The Petroleum Building
Midland, Midland County, Texas
Marker Inscription
T. S. Hogan, a Montana attorney, rancher and oilman, came to the Permian Basin in 1925, where he became active in the oil business. He was convinced Midland was situated in the center of the petroleum basin and that it would become the leading city of the region. In 1927 he announced the construction of this building, which would serve as a center for the area oil companies. Designed by the prominent Fort Worth architect Wyatt C. Hedrick, it was completed in 1929. A formal dedication was held on July 4 of that year. Many believed that Hogan's enterprise signaled Midland's future as a major oil production center. The projections, unfortunately, were premature. Only months after the building was completed, the stock market crash occurred that resulted in the Great Depression of the 1930s. With the discovery of oil in East Texas, the price soon dropped to 15c a barrel. Many companies closed their Midland offices and it was not until 1935 that they began to return to the Permian Basin. When Midland eventually became a leading center of oil production as Hogan had earlier envisioned, the Petroleum Building played a significant role in the town's development. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Convinced Midland sat at the heart of the Permian Basin, oilman and rancher T. S. Hogan announced this office building in 1927 as a hub for the region's oil companies, dedicating it on July 4, 1929. Designed by Fort Worth architect Wyatt C. Hedrick, it opened just before the stock-market crash sent oil to fifteen cents a barrel and drove companies away. When Midland finally became a leading oil center in the years that followed, the Petroleum Building played the role Hogan had imagined.
Why it matters
The building embodies the boom-bust gamble of the early Permian Basin, whose oil wealth would reshape West Texas and fuel the nation.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the mid-1920s, West Texas was a landscape of ranches and open sky beginning to feel the first tremors of an oil age. The Permian Basin — the vast underground formation beneath this stretch of the state — held enormous reserves, and speculators, geologists, and dreamers were arriving to test whether the region would become the next great American oil province.
Midland was one of several small towns competing to become the commercial heart of that boom. It had rail connections and ambition, but its future as an oil center was far from settled. The 1920s were a decade of soaring optimism across the country, and nowhere was that spirit more concentrated than in a boomtown betting on what lay beneath its feet.
Into that moment of possibility stepped a man willing to wager on Midland's future — and to build something permanent to prove his confidence. The marker sets the scene in 1925, when the region's oil business was still young and its greatest days lay ahead.
People & events
The central figure here is T. S. Hogan, described on the marker as a Montana attorney, rancher, and oilman who came to the Permian Basin in 1925 and became active in the oil business. Hogan was convinced Midland sat at the very center of the petroleum basin and would become the region's leading city — and he was prepared to build on that conviction.
In 1927 he announced this building, intended as a center for the area's oil companies, and hired the prominent Fort Worth architect Wyatt C. Hedrick to design it. Completed in 1929 and formally dedicated on the Fourth of July that year, the building seemed to many a signal that Midland's oil future had arrived.
Then the timing turned cruel. As the marker recounts, only months after completion the stock market crashed and the Great Depression set in, and with the discovery of oil in East Texas the price collapsed to fifteen cents a barrel. Companies shuttered their Midland offices, and it was not until 1935 that they began returning to the Permian Basin. Hogan's confidence had been sound — but it arrived several years ahead of its moment.
Its place in the American story
The Petroleum Building is a monument to one of the most American of stories: the boom-and-bust gamble of a resource frontier. Hogan's wager captures both the exhilaration and the risk of the early oil economy, where fortunes were staked on geology and faith, and where a single year's timing could decide whether a bet looked visionary or foolish.
The building's fate is also inseparable from the nation's. The stock market crash and the Depression that followed reached even into a remote West Texas town, and the collapse of oil prices — driven in part by new discoveries elsewhere in the state — shows how tightly this local story was woven into the wider American economy.
And yet the ending vindicates the vision. Midland did eventually become a leading center of oil production, much as Hogan had imagined, and the Permian Basin grew into one of the great engines of American energy. This building stood through the lean years to become part of the very future it had been built to announce.
If you visit
Stand back and take in the building as a statement of confidence. It was conceived not merely as offices but as a hub for an entire industry, and it still carries the ambition of the man who bet that Midland would rise. Designed by a noted Fort Worth architect and dedicated with fanfare on the Fourth of July, 1929, it was meant to be seen and to matter.
As you look, hold the drama of its timing in mind. Picture the optimism of that summer dedication, and then the news that arrived only months later — the crash, the Depression, oil falling to fifteen cents a barrel, offices emptying out. Few buildings so neatly embody the gap between a bold plan and a hard turn of history.
The Petroleum Building makes a natural stop on a walk through downtown Midland, where the story of West Texas oil is close at hand. Take a moment to appreciate that you are looking at a survivor: a building that outlasted the bust it was born into and lived to see the boom its founder had predicted all along.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Themes & tags
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