Midland’s skyline was built by oil money in a few big bursts, and the buildings from each one are still standing downtown and along the older avenues west of it. This guide walks through the ones worth knowing, when they were built, and which you can actually go inside.
Midland County has five properties on the National Register of Historic Places and a couple dozen state historical markers. Most sit within a short drive of each other. We start with the downtown towers, then the theatres, then the homes and museums that stay open to the public. For the museum side of these places, see our guide to museums in Midland.
The Downtown Landmarks
The Petroleum Building (1928)
The T.S. Hogan Petroleum Building at 214 W. Texas Ave. is generally called Midland’s first skyscraper. Oilman T.S. Hogan built it in 1928, and it opened in 1929, designed by Fort Worth architect Wyatt C. Hedrick in a neo-Gothic style with Moorish arches over the entrances. It rises 12 stories, 137 feet to the roof and 151 feet counting the spires. It was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1982 and remains a working office building, so the lobby is viewable during business hours but there are no public tours.
Midland Tower (1948)
At 223 W. Wall St., Midland Tower is another Hedrick design, built in 1948 for oil-industry offices in a Modernistic style with Art Deco details. It was added to the National Register in January 2015 and is still used for offices and coworking.
The Vaughn Building (1952)
The 12-story Vaughn Building at 400 W. Texas Ave. was built in 1952 to Hedrick’s design and remodeled in 1962 and 1963 by Thomas E. Stanley, when it was also known as the Western Building. It joined the National Register in 2016. It is privately owned and not open to the public; you can view the exterior from Texas Avenue.
The Wilco Building (1958)
The Wilco Building at 415 W. Wall St. was the tallest building in West Texas from its completion in 1958 until 1978. Abilene architect Dan Boone designed the 22-story, 308-foot buff-brick tower. It carries no historic designation and is a private office building, but it anchors the block that gave Midland its “Tall City” nickname, which the City Council adopted in 1963.
The Bank of America Building (1970s)
Midland’s tallest building, at 303 W. Wall St., began as a 12-story First National Bank tower designed by George Dahl and gained another 12 floors in 1978, bringing it to 24 stories and 332 feet. The two-story marble banking lobby is open during bank hours. First National Bank’s earlier 1937 building by Hedrick, at 103-105 W. Wall St., was rehabilitated into offices in 2018.
The Theatres
The Yucca Theatre (1929)
The Yucca at 208 N. Colorado St. opened December 5, 1929, with vaudeville and the film “Rio Rita.” Hedrick designed the exterior and H.B. Layman the interior, in an Assyrian and Mesopotamian revival style of cut sandstone, marble, gilded bulls, winged lions, and lotus-shaped lamps. It closed as a movie house in 1974, and volunteers restored it in 1981. Midland Community Theatre owns the building today, and it is home to Summer Mummers, the melodrama-and-olio show that runs Friday and Saturday nights from June through Labor Day. The Yucca is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark with a state marker out front. Access is by ticket for performances.
The Ritz Theatre (1928)
The Ritz at 207 N. Main St. opened in 1928 with a Streamline Moderne design by W. Scott Dunne and 728 seats. It ran as a cinema into the 1980s and later as a nightclub. In 2016 Basin PBS bought the building for its offices and events, so it is not a public theatre today, but the facade is a short walk from the Yucca.
Historic Homes You Can Visit
The Brown-Dorsey House (1899)
At 213 N. Weatherford St., the Brown-Dorsey House is Midland’s oldest surviving home. Rancher and merchant Z. Taylor Brown built it in 1899, and his family moved in in January 1900. It is Folk Victorian, with carved woodwork, a Gothic art-glass entry window, and three fireplaces sharing one chimney. The house stayed in the Brown family until 1969 and now belongs to the Midland Historical Society, which added it to the National Register in 1982. Tours run on scheduled dates and by appointment for groups.
The Turner Mansion (1936)
The Fred and Juliette Turner House at 1705 W. Missouri Ave. was built in 1936 and 1937 for oilman Fred Turner Jr., designed by Dallas architect Anton F. Korn Jr. in a mix of Tudor, Georgian, Art Deco, and Mediterranean elements, at a cost of about $250,000. It had Midland’s first private swimming pool, plus stables and a tennis court. The Turner family gave the house to the Museum of the Southwest, which has been based there since 1968, and it was listed on the National Register in 1988. Today the Turner Legacy Galleries inside cover Midland history and the family’s two Kentucky Derby wins.
The Bush Family Home (1951 to 1955)
The Texas Historical Commission runs the Bush Family Home at 1412 W. Ohio Ave. as a state historic site. The family lived here from 1951 to 1955, and the house is restored to that period. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the last tour starting at 4:15 p.m. At last check, admission was $5 for adults, $3 for seniors, veterans, teachers and first responders, $2 for kids 6 to 17, and free for kids 5 and under, or $8 for a family of two adults and one child. It was added to the National Register in 2004.
History Museums and Archives
Midland County History Museum, 200 N. Main St. at Texas Avenue. Run by the Midland Historical Society in a downtown storefront since 2019, with exhibits from prehistory through the 20th century.
Haley Memorial Library and History Center, 1805 W. Indiana Ave. Founded in 1961 by historian J. Evetts Haley in memory of his wife, in a building that opened in 1976. It holds more than 20,000 volumes of Texana and Southwestern Americana alongside western art, saddles, and spurs.
Midland Army Air Field Museum, 9600 Wright Dr. at the airport. Sloan Field, founded in 1931, became the Midland Army Flying School in 1942 and one of the largest bombardier training schools of World War II. The Commemorative Air Force was headquartered here from 1991 to 2015, and the local High Sky Wing opened this museum in its hangar in 2016.
What’s Gone and What Replaced It
Two downtown landmarks survive only in photographs. The Scharbauer Hotel, opened in 1928 by rancher Clarence Scharbauer at Wall and Loraine, ran for 45 years before it was demolished in 1973 for the Midland Hilton, now the DoubleTree at 117 W. Wall St. The 1930 Art Deco Midland County Courthouse at 200 W. Wall St., by Voelcker and Dixon of Wichita Falls, came down in November 2015; Centennial Park opened on the site in 2020. County government moved in 2010 to 500 N. Loraine St., a former Texaco office tower built in the early 1980s.
Markers you can still find around town include Midland’s First House (a 1908 concrete-block home), the 1908 W.F. Scarborough Home, and the site of John Valentine Pliska’s blacksmith shop, where Pliska built and flew a plane in 1912. The older neighborhood along West Ohio, Missouri, and Indiana avenues is where most of the 1920s and 1930s homes are, though it is not a designated historic district; our neighborhoods guide has more on that area.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the oldest building in Midland, Texas?
The Brown-Dorsey House at 213 N. Weatherford St., built in 1899, is Midland’s oldest surviving home. It is owned by the Midland Historical Society and open for tours on scheduled dates.
What was Midland’s first skyscraper?
The Petroleum Building at 214 W. Texas Ave., built in 1928 by T.S. Hogan. It is 12 stories and a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Which Midland buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places?
Five: the Brown-Dorsey House (1982), the Fred and Juliette Turner House at the Museum of the Southwest (1988), the Bush Family Home (2004), Midland Tower (2015), and the Vaughn Building (2016).
Can you tour the Yucca Theatre?
The Yucca is open for ticketed performances through Midland Community Theatre, including Summer Mummers from June through Labor Day. There are no standing daily tours.
Why is Midland called the Tall City?
The nickname came from the cluster of office towers built downtown in the 1950s oil boom, including the Wilco Building, which was West Texas’s tallest from 1958 to 1978. The City Council adopted “Tall City” officially in 1963.
Have a story or a photo tied to one of these buildings? Pitch a story and we’ll take a look.
Top photo: Larry D. Moore, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
