First Post Office in Midland

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. On January 4th, 1884, a post office opened up in a little West Texas settlement, and Charles H. Welch stepped in as postmaster.

Now, the folks who lived there had a name picked out for their town. They wanted to call it Midway, on account of it sitting halfway between Fort Worth and El Paso. Neat, logical, satisfying.

The kind of name that tells you exactly where you are. There was just one problem. Somebody else in Texas had already claimed it.

Some other town, somewhere else in this enormous state, had gotten to Midway first. So the settlers went back to the drawing board. And what they landed on was Midland.

That first post office sat at 108 East Missouri, right where the main loading dock of the facility stood when this story was committed to the marker. From that original spot, the postal headquarters moved. Not once.

Four times it moved before the whole operation finally came back around to where it started, upon completion of a new federal building in 1974. Full circle, right back to 108 East Missouri. And today, that Midland Post Office serves a region of thirty-two thousand square miles.

Thirty-two thousand. One post office. That's not a mail route, folks.

That's a kingdom.

What the marker says

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)