Explore publications and collections from the past.
Community History Archive Partner
West of the Pecos Museum
Pecos, Texas
Explore this community history collection to discover the people, places, organizations, and events of Pecos.
See individual titles for available dates.
Historical pages reported for this collection.
Explore local history
Discover the people, places, and stories of Pecos, Texas.
Explore the past of Pecos, Texas through newspapers as well as yearbooks and annuals in the West of the Pecos Museum's digital archive. Its fourteen titles include material from 1901 to 2025.
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Selected titles
A selection from West of the Pecos Museum: “Eagle Yearbooks” and “The Pecos Indepedent News”.
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Free and open access
No subscription or payment required.
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Different views of the past
Yearbooks and annuals bring together the people and activities their editors chose to remember, offering a view of life within a particular year. An earlier generation comes into view through the stories its newspapers chose to report, placing familiar names and events within the concerns of their time.
Reporting from the time can reveal how people described the events, work and concerns of their day, placing a local story within the history unfolding around it. Whether you are tracing a family connection, exploring a local event or sharing history with a class, there is more to discover than names and dates alone. Explore the archive online for free, without a subscription.
Explore the collection
Titles in this collection
Browse fourteen titles and 331,588 digitized pages, with material from 1901 to 2025. Through a partnership with Advantage Archives, West of the Pecos Museum shares these sources from the past. Some years or items may be missing between the dates shown.
A family story or a question about a familiar place can lead somewhere unexpected. Browse the titles below and see which detail draws you in.
Eagle Yearbooks
19,554 pages from 1946 to 1999
Pecos Daily News
434 pages in 1962
Pecos Daily Times
82 pages in 1911
Pecos Enterprise
289,696 pages from 1916 to 2025
Pecos Free Press
12 pages in 2009
Pecos Gusher
1,966 pages from 1921 to 1925
Pecos Independent And Enterprise
10,350 pages from 1960 to 1966
Pecos Record Times
674 pages in 1913
Pecos Times
2,900 pages from 1910 to 1917
Prairie Du Rocher Sun
24 pages in 1956
Reeves County Record
620 pages from 1901 to 1911
The Pecos Indepedent News
5,180 pages from 1955 to 1967
The Uptown News And The Northside Citizen
16 pages in 1930
Toyah Enterprise
80 pages in 1945
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About the Archive
About the West of the Pecos Museum’s Digital Archives
The West of the Pecos Museum offers free and open access to its digitized collection of historical newspapers and yearbooks, providing an invaluable educational resource for researchers, genealogists, and community members interested in exploring Pecos, Texas's collective history. In partnership with Advantage Archives , the museum has digitized a significant number of pages spanning from the early 20th century to the present. This initiative underscores a shared responsibility to preserve and make accessible the firsthand accounts and perspectives that document history as it happened.
About the Museum
About the West of the Pecos Museum
Located at 120 East Dot Stafford Street in Pecos, Texas, the West of the Pecos Museum is dedicated to preserving and sharing the rich history of West Texas. Housed in the historic Orient Hotel and the adjacent 1896 saloon, the museum features over 50 rooms of exhibits, including pioneer and Native American artifacts, a rodeo and ranching collection, railroad memorabilia, and displays highlighting African-American and Mexican-American heritage. The museum also offers outdoor exhibits such as the Mesquite House, Clay Allison’s Grave, and a replica of Judge Roy Bean’s courthouse and saloon. Learn more about the museum .
Institution History
The History of the West of the Pecos Museum
Established in 1962 by a committee of local citizens, the West of the Pecos Museum was created to promote the conservation of local history and inspire community involvement. Since 1963, the museum has been located in the Orient Hotel, a turn-of-the-century structure that was abandoned in the late 1950s. The museum's exhibits offer a comprehensive view of the region's development, from its early days to the present. Learn more about the museum's history .
About the Community
About Pecos, Texas
Pecos, the county seat of Reeves County, Texas, is a city rich in history and cultural heritage. Known for its claim as the home of the world's first rodeo in 1883, Pecos has a population of approximately 9,000 residents. The city is situated on the western edge of the Permian Basin and has a strong connection to the oil and gas industry, agriculture, and ranching. Learn more about Pecos .
Local History
Did You Know?
The West of the Pecos Museum's archives include a wealth of resources for genealogists and historians, such as:
- Historic Newspapers detailing local events and developments
- Yearbooks from Pecos High School, capturing decades of student life
- Photographs documenting the growth and changes in the community
- Oral Histories providing personal accounts of life in Pecos
These resources provide a comprehensive view of the city's development and are invaluable for anyone researching the area's past. Explore the Digital Archives .
More ways to explore and share local history
Research Guidance
Look beyond a familiar name
When a name appears in a yearbook tied to Pecos, check its caption, page, and nearby content in the yearbooks and annuals shared by the West of the Pecos Museum. Activities or group references may add context where shown, but one page does not represent every student's experience. These pages can reconnect a family with a place or moment while leaving some identities and relationships open to confirmation.
Where the available dates overlap, use a name, activity, or organization in a yearbook or annual as a starting point for a newspaper search. Compare the details carefully; a similar name is a lead to investigate, not an identification by itself.
Keep the title, date, page or item reference with each useful finding. Separate the words in a historical account from your interpretation, and note conflicting perspectives rather than choosing one too quickly. These notes help you connect a local story to its evidence and explain what remains uncertain.
Community Partnership
Keeping local history a community resource
This community archive is made possible by the collaboration of the West of the Pecos Museum, its community, and Advantage Archives. Together, these partnerships preserve local sources and give people a way to explore, learn from, and share the history around them.
Advantage Archives covers ongoing archive hosting, storage, development, and maintenance. The institution and its community do not pay a subscription, seat license, annual support contract, or other recurring archive-service charge. Local history remains a community resource, not a subscription to maintain.
Would you like to see more of your community's history preserved and accessible? Start a conversation with your library, newspaper publisher, historical or genealogical society, museum, or school about the materials they would like to share and a possible partnership with Advantage Archives.
Learn about partnerships
Stories, research tips, and archive news
Read All About It connects archive research with the people and institutions preserving local history. Explore partner and community stories, project updates, research ideas, and perspectives on digitization, education, and working with primary sources. Use the articles as a starting point for your next question or a new way to share a discovery.
May 7, 2025
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Don’t Search For An Obituary By Only Searching For An “Obituary”
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Unveiling the Hidden Mysteries: Exploring Cold Cases and Unconventional Clues
April 1, 2025
This Week in History: March 31st through April 6th
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This Week in History: March 24th through March 30th
March 18, 2025
