  We present the Massive and Distant Clusters of WISE Survey (MaDCoWS), a
search for galaxy clusters at 0.7<z<1.5 based upon data from the Wide-field
Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. MaDCoWS is the first cluster survey
capable of discovering massive clusters at these redshifts over the full
extragalactic sky. The search is divided into two regions -- the region of the
extragalactic sky covered by Pan-STARRS (Dec>-30 degrees) and the remainder of
the southern extragalactic sky at Dec<-30 degrees for which shallower optical
data from SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey are available. In this paper we describe the
search algorithm, characterize the sample, and present the first MaDCoWS data
release -- catalogs of the 2433 highest amplitude detections in the
WISE--Pan-STARRS region and the 250 highest amplitude detections in the
WISE--SuperCOSMOS region. A total of 1723 of the detections from the
WISE--Pan-STARRS sample have also been observed with the Spitzer Space
Telescope, providing photometric redshifts and richnesses, and an additional 64
detections within the WISE--SuperCOSMOS region also have photometric redshifts
and richnesses. Spectroscopic redshifts for 38 MaDCoWS clusters with IRAC
photometry demonstrate that the photometric redshifts have an uncertainty of
$\sigma_z/(1+z)\sim0.036$. Combining the richness measurements with
Sunyaev-Zel'dovich observations of MaDCoWS clusters, we also present a
preliminary mass-richness relation that can be used to infer the approximate
mass distribution of the full sample. The estimated median mass for the
WISE--Pan-STARRS catalog is $M_{500}=1.6^{+0.7}_{-0.8}\times10^{14}
\mathrm{M}_\odot$, with the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich data confirming that we detect
clusters with masses up to $M_{500}\sim5\times10^{14} \mathrm{M}_\odot$
$(M_{200}\sim10^{15} \mathrm{M}_\odot)$.
