Photo credit: The Petroleum Museum

What to know: The Museum of the Southwest has served as a cultural landmark in Midland since opening in 1966, but its main building has a much longer history. Before becoming the museum, the mansion was the home of oilman Fred Turner, his wife Juliette, and their two daughters, Fredda Turner Durham and Dorothy Turner Scharbauer. Turner’s success in the Permian Basin helped shape Midland’s early oil economy.

The big picture: In 1936, Turner purchased 12 lots to build the home and commissioned a Dallas architect to design what became the largest and most expensive home in Midland, then a city of about 9,000 people. The $250,000 mansion featured Midland’s first residential swimming pool, a tennis court, and horse stables.

After Fred Turner died in 1964, the Turner family donated the mansion to the Museum of the Southwest in 1968. Today, visitors can still tour much of the original home, with most of the mansion preserved despite later gallery additions. The Turner Mansion and its stables were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

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Go deeper: Turner was born in 1896 on a ranch in Coleman County, Texas, where he learned about drilling and dressed tools at an early age. In April 1927, he came to Midland as a scout for Marland Oil Company.

Shortly afterward, Turner identified what he believed was an unsurveyed vacancy in the Yates Oil Field in Pecos County. After years of litigation, he drilled the tract in 1933, producing what the Petroleum Museum describes as one of the greatest-producing wells in the United States.

Turner went on to make additional discoveries, including the West Lovington Field in Lea County, New Mexico, and the Shafter Lake San Andres, Parker Wolfcamp and Parker Pennsylvania fields in Andrews County. He was also active in Ector County, other parts of Texas, and San Miguel County, Colorado.

Outside the oil business, Turner expanded into ranching, raising cattle and thoroughbred horses. The Turners’ horse Tomy Lee won the Kentucky Derby in 1959. Fred died in February 1964 while at his pecan farm near Brownwood.