Miles, Texas: The Man Who Bought a Railroad Stop

In the late eighteen eighties, the Santa Fe Railroad was laying tracks from Ballinger west toward San Angelo when the money ran out at a dusty stop in Runnels County. A local settler named Jonathan Miles donated five thousand dollars to help extend the line. The railroad named the stop Miles Station in his honor. The word Station was later dropped, and the town became simply Miles.

Several historic commercial buildings still stand in town, including the old Opera House, which has been restored and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Miles sits on a stretch of Highway Sixty-Seven where the land flattens into cotton and grain fields stretching toward the Permian Basin. The town's population has held around eight hundred for much of the past century, small but stable, rooted in agriculture and the story of one man's practical investment.