Midland was a young farming and ranching community on the southern edge of the Llano Estacado when the real-photo postcard era began near the opening of the 20th century. Businesses, residents, and promoters embraced this new technology to produce images capturing Midland's unusual rural-and-cosmopolitan mix. As postcards changed to linen and chrome, Midland also underwent dramatic changes. The city on the plains worked hard to become an indispensable part of the vast 1920s Permian Basin oil industry. In post-World War II years, Midland grew into an urban center of West Texas, positioned...

In 1859, the US military established Fort Stockton to gain control of Comanche Springs, which formed an oasis in the midst of arid West Texas. In the town that grew up beside the fort, a colorful mix of hardy pioneers--Peter Gallagher, Cesario Torres, Frank Rooney, Father Jose Ferra, Annie Frazier Johnson Riggs, and others--struggled (and sometimes fought) to construct a viable farming and ranching community in the vast, isolated terrain of Pecos County. Later, railroads, highways, air bases, oil, natural gas, and wind farms joined water as forces shaping the city's history. A century and a...