COTTON FLAT, TEXAS. Cotton Flat is 3½ miles south of Midland on State Highway 349 in central Midland County. It developed as a farming community when Henry Mayer Halff broke up the local Quien Sabe Ranch around 1910 by dividing it into family farms. By 1911 a school district had formed in the area, and Lula Countiss served as teacher. Since the community was unnamed, Countiss and her sister selected Cotton Flat by drawing from possible names they had placed in a hat. The Cotton Flat school building was also used for Sunday school and church services. Later a church was constructed in the community. In the 1940s the Cotton Flat school district was consolidated with the Midland Independent School District. In the 1990s Cotton Flat had a number of residences and a Baptist church and parsonage, a grocery store, a mobile home park, and a service station.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Midland County Historical Society, The Pioneer History of Midland County, Texas, 1880–1926 (Dallas: Taylor, 1984).
