Midland & Northwestern Railroad

The line was chartered on January 16, 1916, with $65,000 in stock, business offices in Midland and a board drawn mostly from Midland men, among them J. A. Haley, H. N. Garrett and B. F. Whitefield. The 47.5 miles from Midland to Florey opened in September 1917, and the last 17.5 miles to Seminole a year later. The Texas and Pacific, which had supplied materials and equipment, held a lien on the property. A receiver took over on March 1, 1920, service stopped on July 25, and the T&P bought the line on June 5, 1923.

What the plaque says

Midland & Northwestern Railroad Standard gauge 66-mile line built by David Fasken, Sr., to carry cattle, ranch supplies, passengers. Operated 1916 to 1920 -- critical era of World War I and world starvation aftermath. Linked towns of Fasken, Florey, and Seminole with Texas & Pacific Railway at Midland. At first, operated with locomotive borrowed from T. & P. Train had to stop for pasture gates to be opened. Crew shot coyotes and rattlesnakes. In a breakdown, the passengers were fed, sheltered at Fasken. Work crew slept on the prairie. Floored out in 1920, M. & N. R. was abandoned. Roadbed still is visible. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Midland Army Air Field Museum — 7.2 mi
  A hangar museum at Midland's airport, run by Commemorative Air Force volunteers, telling how a 1927 grass field became the bombardier college that graduated 6,627 officers in World War II.
• Bush Family Home State Historic Site — 10 mi
  The small 1939 frame house on West Ohio Avenue where George and Barbara Bush raised their young family in Midland's 1950s oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site.
• Museum of the Southwest — 10 mi
  Midland's art and science museum in the 1937 house of oilman Fred Turner and his wife Juliette, with added galleries, a children's museum and a planetarium on the grounds.
• Permian Basin Petroleum Museum — 11 mi
  Midland's museum of the oil basin it sits on, from a restored diorama of the Permian reef to a 40-acre yard of drilling rigs and Jim Hall's Chaparral race cars.

More markers nearby

• Gardendale — 7.2 mi
• Site of Old Midland Army Flying School — 7.7 mi
• Midland County — 8.0 mi
• First Baptist Church of Midland — 9.7 mi