Valley View

Valley View is on Farm Road 1213 ten miles southeast of Midland in central Midland County. It developed as a farming community around 1910, when Henry M. Halff began to break up his Quien Sabe Ranch by dividing it into family farms. Among the early settlers of the community were Almorane Brunson, Lenton Brunson, Symeon Castellaw, D. R. Ray, and T. N. Wilson. The first rural public school in Midland County was opened at Valley View before 1911 in part of a farmhouse belonging to D. A. Ray. It was a one-room school with one teacher. Baptist Sunday school and church services were also held in the school building. After one revival meeting, converts were baptized in the Ray stock tank. In 1927 Gilbert Brunson donated land for both a church building and a school building on the corner opposite the original school. In 1945 the Valley View School was consolidated with the Midland Independent School District, and the school building became a community center. Valley View Baptist Church continued to hold services in its remodeled 1927 building in the 1990s.