GREENWOOD, TEXAS (Midland County). Greenwood is on State Highway 307 and Farm Road 1379 eleven miles northeast of Midland in northeastern Midland County. The area developed as a farming community in the late 1890s, when open-range cattlemen yielded their tenuous land claims to small farmers. Greenwood Baptist Church was organized in 1907 after holding services in a vacant saloon in Slaughter. The church was named for the two missionaries who helped with its founding, Reverend Green and Reverend Wood. A permanent church building was erected in 1926 on land donated by John M. King, a charter member and deacon of the church. The community then adopted the name of the church. In 1924 schools at Stokes, McClintic, and Prairie Lee merged to form the Greenwood Independent School District. The Texas Almanac reported a population of thirty-two at Greenwood from 1964 through 1990, though in 1990 the community clearly had more residents than that. In 1990 it had more than fifty residences, as well as a public school system, a volunteer fire department, three churches, two stores, and a barbershop. In 2000 the population was 2,000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Midland County Historical Society, The Pioneer History of Midland County, Texas, 1880–1926 (Dallas: Taylor, 1984).
