Qualla: Permian Basin Petroleum Museum

Permian Basin Petroleum Museum: Introduction

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oldwizzard, CC BY-SA 3.0. Every other month or so, the staff at the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum fires up one of the race cars in the parking lot. Not to move it to storage, but to keep it alive. The museum houses seven vehicles from Chaparral Cars, the legendary Texas racing team that revolutionized motorsport aerodynamics in the 1960s, and mechanical things need to run. The fact that a petroleum museum in Midland, Texas, doubles as a shrine to ground-effect race cars makes perfect sense when you understand the Permian Basin. Oil built this region, and oil money built everything else, from universities to racing teams that won at Sebring and the Nurburgring and got banned for being too fast. The museum opened in 1975 to tell that story, and over the decades it has grown into one of the largest petroleum-focused collections in the world.

Image: Oldwizzard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Permian Basin Petroleum Museum: A Billion Years in the Making

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Plazak at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Permian Basin takes its name from the Permian geological period, roughly 299 to 252 million years ago, when this part of Texas and New Mexico lay beneath a shallow inland sea. As marine organisms died and sank into the sediment, their remains slowly transformed under heat and...

Image: Plazak at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Permian Basin Petroleum Museum: From Boomtowns to Modern Industry

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Craig Howell, CC BY 2.0. The petroleum history wing recreates the human story of oil. A full-scale replica of a 1920s town center features a company storefront, land and title office, and vintage fuel pump, evoking the era when wildcatters turned empty prairie into boomtowns overnight. Artifacts trace th...

Image: Craig Howell | CC BY 2.0

Permian Basin Petroleum Museum: Chaparral Cars and the Pursuit of Speed

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Craig Howell, CC BY 2.0. The museum's Chaparral Gallery is an unexpected treasure. In 1962, race car drivers Jim Hall and Hap Sharp founded Chaparral Cars in Midland, using oil money and engineering brilliance to build some of the most innovative vehicles in motorsport history. Their small Texas shop pio...

Image: Craig Howell | CC BY 2.0

Permian Basin Petroleum Museum: The Basin From Above

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Billy Hathorn, CC BY-SA 3.0. Midland sprawls across the Permian Basin at roughly 2,800 feet elevation, a city defined by the industry beneath it. From the air, the region is a patchwork of pump jacks, tank batteries, and drilling pads stretching to the horizon in every direction. The museum sits on the weste...

Image: Billy Hathorn | CC BY-SA 3.0