MIDLAND, Texas — It's a Permian Basin landmark. We're talking about the Museum of the Southwest.
From the Children's Museum to the Blakemore Planetarium, the Museum has something for everyone.
But before it was a museum, it was home to one of the most prominent families in Midland history: The Turners, led by Fred and Juliette Turner.
"Mr. Turner was a land scout and worked in the Yates field in Pecos County," Lori Wesley, executive director of the Museum of Southwest said. "Realizing there were some vacancies, which were what they call unclaimed land, went and filed for those."
Turner would go on to own that land, which at that time the largest known oil reserves in the world.
"And [he] drilled the first 'Fred Turner Jr., No. 1'," Wesley said. "Which came in at 156,000 barrels a day."
With that new wealth, he bought 12 lots of land in downtown Midland; with plans to build a big house.
A home we now know as the Historic Turner Mansion.
Construction started on the almost 5,500 square foot home, which cost just $250,000 at the time.
"It started building in 1936," Wesley said. "It sits on 12 lots and it's one of the bigger pieces of property in town. Mr. and Mrs. Turner built it and they had two daughters: Freda and Dorothy.
Dorothy ended up marrying Clarence Scharbauer Jr., a member of another prominent Midland family: the Scharbauers.
And that family history lives on in the home today.
With one room being dedicated to how the home's former residents impacted the Tall City.
"They were critical actually," Wesley said about the Turners. "They were very philanthropic, big supporter of churches in Midland, brought a lot of culture to Midland. In the solarium we have a timeline, and it starts with the Turners getting his vacancies and drilling his well, and it goes until the Scharbauer Tower was built for Midland Memorial."
The families lived in the luxurious house from 1937 to 1964, and you have the opportunity to tour the mansion yourself if you visit the Museum of the Southwest.
Everywhere, except the upstairs. That's because the Turner's bedrooms now serve as office space.
But when I was there, I was able to go upstairs: an exclusive experience.
"It's quite grand now, but to think about it in its heyday when there weren't offices," MK Marshall, senior director of development and communication at the Museum of Southwest said. "When it was adorned with the original furniture and the grandeur of it. I can only imagine, you know. It's just overwhelming. I think about Mrs. Turner coming down the staircase. To me, that's just, that's breathtaking."
Amongst the wealthiest people in town, that money had to go somewhere.
"You know, you get that kind of money. What do you do?" Wesley asked. "You buy a racehorse. So Mr. Turner actually bought two horses and brought them over from Europe. The one he thought was going to be the Kentucky Derby winner didn't pan out as well. So he ran Tomy Lee, and he won in 1959. It was actually stabled here in Midland, Texas. Tomy Lee is actually always one of three non-American bred horses to win the Kentucky Derby."
Among the vast history in this mansion, the biggest mystery of this house is hidden in a closet upstairs...
"Wanna hear a secret?" Wesley asked. "We have a safe that we don’t know how to open. So the safe, it's a mystery all of its own. So we've never opened it and I can't find any records where it has been opened since the museum has been here. So stuff that legends are made of."
I had to ask: "What do you think's in there?"
"Millions and millions of dollars," Wesley answered.
But it isn’t the potential jackpot in that safe that inspires these workers, it’s the innovation and hard work shown when creating this gargantuan mansion, that’s still standing today.
"I think one of the things that's so interesting is how the Turners made this grand lifestyle without the modern technologies that we have," Wesley said. "We talked about the air conditioning and lack thereof and how they use drafts and wind directions to cool it. All of this architecture was done with a slide rule. There's no CAD drawings. There's no computer renderings, all of the doors and woodwork are hand carved. All of our balustrades, these are all handmade. The front door was handmade. The front entrance is hand-carved limestone. So just the amount of work, and passion, and artistry in the house, I think is one of the best things about it."
After the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Turner in the early '60s, the family gifted the house to the Museum of the Southwest, and it’s been one of the most interesting museums in the Permian Basin ever since.
But just because it’s a museum now doesn’t take away from the fascinating history of the Turners, and how Fred turned an unclaimed vacancy to one of the most luxurious mansions in Midland.