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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.

14Titles

Explore publications and collections from the past.

1901 to 2025Dates represented

See individual titles for available dates.

331,588Archive pages

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.

  • Selected titles

    A selection from West of the Pecos Museum: “Eagle Yearbooks” and “The Pecos Indepedent News”.

  • Free and open access

    No subscription or payment required.

  • 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.

Review collection titles

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
Read All About It

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.

Newest published articles

March 18, 2025

It’s Your Community’s History, So Why Rent Something You Own?

We believe that history belongs to the communities where it was made - not locked behind paywalls or inaccessible due to budget restrictions. Subscription-based services and large content aggregators are generally more concerned with "content" and less concerned with the history that content contains. Their models typically involve a reoccurring charge for a plan that renews annually or licensing agreements with the library based on population served or circulation numbers. You are essentially Renting Access To YOUR History.
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