Essays

Moseying: Living La Vida Llanero

To navigate the present, look back at the other times the world changed
September 19, 2007

It appears that the economic forces that drive West Texas are diversifying unlike any other time of our history. In the past ten years, Midland-Odessa has become well established as a central location (for a vast region) for medicine, higher education, and retail. The windpower boom is readily apparent, too. The infrastructure changes necessary for La entrada al pacifico are underway, so another boom is on the horizon. Seventy and eighty dollars-a-barrel oil is paying for the changes.

Oil has been king for seventy years. Before that, the livestock industry shaped our society in tandem with mercantilism, because of our location along of the railroad. This year’s mayoral race in Midland is about diversification, for one of the candidates has conducted her career in the public spotlight as an agent of diversification. Is the political infrastructure of the region still dominated by the oil industry? If we are indeed in the midst of a shift in the political landscape as well as the economic landscape, it behooves us all to look back at our past – just how did similar shifts occur in simpler times?

At 6 p.m., on September 20th, at the Scarborough-Linebery house, as part of its 100th year celebration, Midlanders have a chance to review our past. Kathy Shannon, the executive director of the Petroleum Museum, Judge John Hyde (a locally popular speaker focusing on early Midland history) , author Patrick Dearen (who has written extensively of the livestock industry of the region), and I will present a fireside chat. (I will talk about the Indian and Hispanic utilization of our home landscape before settlement.) Call Frances Stapp 432-685-7368 if you would like to attend.

The Scarborough-Linebery House at 802 S. Main is the second oldest home in Midland. It was built in 1907 by Bill and Kara Scarborough. They moved from their Dawson County ranch so their four younger children could attend school in Midland. At the time, Florida Street was the southern edge of town. The upstairs to the house was added in 1927 to 1029, and the den was added in the 1940s. In 1996 the family donated to the City of Midland in 1998, and is used for school tours, day retreats, weddings, parties, luncheons, and dinners.

The “Ice-Age” Indians hunted mammoth and many other megafauna species in the region. Jumanos, Apaches, Comanches, and Kiowa Indians hunted bison and pronghorn on the Llano Estacado, but none of these groups lived year around. Spanish conquistadors, explorers, traders, priests and buffalo hunters are also part of the “pre-settlement” history of the region. Mr. Dearen will talk about the great “drifts” of cattle during snowstorms, about line-riders, and about how the cowboys of a big “outfit” often determined local politics in the first few years of settlement. Judge Hyde will discuss some of the people that built the town and the events of the first 40 years. Ms. Shannon will discuss the Santa Rita and Yates fields which stimulated the construction of the infrastructure of the oilfields – the roads, pipelines, and supply networks that got materials to the oilfield.

The wealth produced by the oil industry and our remote location has made Midland a unique place. As a white-collar community with a blue-collar twin, Odessa, Midland is genteel. Our per-capita average household income for a community our size consistently is at the top of nationwide surveys. Those of our children educated in California liberal dialectics that label Midland as “a bunch of pretentious Republicans frozen in time at the time of the Cleavers” are ignorant of the premium value of superb medical facilities, a low crime rate, clean tree-lined streets, and peaceful schoolyards.

Midland is not the “last bastion of the petroleum-based white-male dominated society” as those same critics espouse. We escaped the tumult of the social unrest of 1960s but quietly adjusted to the concept that women and minorities are people capable of leadership. We are slowly learning the vernacular of “sustainability,” as petroleum becomes more valuable. We have not yet endured the pressures presented by limited water resources, but on our own we are learning more appropriate usage. Windpower is beginning play a larger role.

As we journey through the events of this, the third great change in regional economics, we should remember the past. For the American Indian and the Hispanic conquistador, missionary, cibolero, and Comanchero Midland County was a place to be passed by on the way to other goals. In wetter years the southern Llano Estacado was winter range for the Southern Great Plains bison herd, so at times these visitors might stay a few weeks.

The open-range cattlemen purchased his supplies at Midland mercantile yards and grazed his herds nearby for the first available train with plenty of empty cattle cars. The first wave of farmers in Lea, Andrews, and Gaines, Yoakum, and other high plains counties made week-long trips to Midland to market and return with another six-months of necessities.

By the late 1930s Midland became the nerve center of the greatest oil-producing region in the nation. The hippest swing bands played in sumptuous speakeasies in the outlying boomtowns. Stars of Hollywood Westerns were the main attraction at regional rodeos and visited the last of the “big outfits” in search of authenticity. At first the lucky wildcatters built homes in imitation of Fort Worth, then by the 1960s adopted an aesthetic originating in Houston. As the major oil companies took over, Midland became a training ground for the upwardly mobile executive.

Cattleman and oilman alike wrangled with Austin and Washington, and the oilman soon adroitly learned the “ways of the big hat.” “Them that could walk the walk and talk the talk” got things done. And by being way out in the wilds of West Texas, you didn’t wait for Austin's or Washington’s permission, for they “didn’t have a clue” about what was going on. In the early days, the political power of the cattleman shaped Texas laws, but by the 1940s political power became a tool of the petroleum industry. In such a powerful atmosphere Midland became the training ground for future presidents, generals, and energy executives. We are training a new wave of leaders who are unknown to us now, but without a doubt, Midlanders will make a difference on the world’s stage in the future.