Article Title

Intensive Archeological Survey For Proposed Road And Utility Improvements At The Spaceport Business Park, Midland International Air & Space Port, Midland County, Texas

Authors

Chris Dayton
Melissa M. Green

Agency

Texas Historical Commission

Abstract

In April 2015, an intensive archeological survey was completed in order to inventory and evaluate archeological resources within the footprint of proposed road and utility improvements at the Spaceport Business Park located on the southwest corner of the Midland International Air & Space Port. These improvements include construction of a new road approximately 0.476 mile (assuming 50-foot [ft] wide right-of-way) and 2.42 miles of new utilities (varying 15 to 50-ft wide right-of-way) within the Park. The road footprint is 4.8 acres (ac) or 1.9 hectares (ha) while the utilities corridors cover approximately 6.0 ac or 2.4 ha for a total of 10.8 ac or 4.3 ha. The work was carried out for the Midland International Air & Space Port under Texas Antiquities Permit 7229 by Chris Dayton and Melissa Green (Principal Investigator) of Cox|McLain Environmental Consulting, Inc. (CMEC), a subcontractor to Mead & Hunt.

Ground surfaces within the APE were moderately to highly visible (between 50 and 90 percent). Bedrock outcrops were encountered on the south side of the APE, illustrating the thinness of soil cover in this area. The APE has been subjected to extensive previous disturbance, including decades of airfieldrelated clearing and grading, railroad construction and maintenance, utility installation and maintenance, drainage modification, landscaping, and spreading of imported gravels. No suitable locations for productive shovel testing were found. No materials of archeological interest were found during pedestrian examination of the APE. The APE contains a historic-age railroad spur that follows approximately the orientation of the proposed roadway; the railroad is being assessed in a separate Mead & Hunt report regarding the built environment.

No artifacts, features, deposits, sites, or other cultural resources were encountered during the survey, so there are no artifacts to be curated. However, all notes, forms, and other project data will be made permanently available to future researchers at Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL) at the University of Texas at Austin per TAC 26.16 and 26.17.

The Texas Historical Commission (THC) concurred with the findings and recommendations of this report on July 9, 2015.

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