Midland was founded in 1850 as a coal-mining community in the heart of the George’s Creek Valley, once a major center of the nation’s coal industry. But coal production started to decline after World War I, and today only some strip mining remains as the last vestige of this once all important industry. Coal trains that once went through the town daily now pass only once or twice a month.

Most of the original settlers came in response to the abundance of jobs available in the coal mines. Many were Irish, but German, Scottish, and Welsh names also are found in the early records of the town.