West of Sweetwater, the now-closed Midway Drive-in Theater was a 320-car- capacity drive-in with concession stands and a playground. Although drive-ins are not unusual, this one strikes wonder in passersby. Not only is the screen building a huge, solid structure, but its highway-facing wall is painted with a zigzag illusion of a purple mountain range, trimmed with a green halo of pine forest. You have to drive another six hundred miles on I-20 to see the real thing; this is the biggest mountain range between Arkansas and New Mexico.
To the south at 303 County Road 142 is the Rolling Plains Cooperative Compress plant, a division of the Plains Cotton Cooperative Association. This huge expanse of corrugated metal warehouses with acres of baled cotton reminds travelers that they are in the cotton kingdom of the irrigated South Plains. Cotton-growing regions can immediately be recognized by the lint along the roadside, a frequent occurrence of cotton gins, and the omnipresent mechanized irrigation rigs.