Texas Pecos Trail Region

02/08/2024

8/2/1882: Law arrives west of the Pecos

On this day in 1882, the commissioners of Pecos County officially appointed Roy Bean justice of the peace. He retained the post, with short interruptions, until he retired voluntarily in 1902. As he gained fame for being an eccentric and original interpreter of the law, the Kentucky native became known as the "Law West of the Pecos." For example, when a man carrying forty dollars and a pistol fell off a bridge, Bean fined the co**se forty dollars for carrying a concealed weapon. The forty dollars covered the man's funeral expenses. Bean died in his saloon on March 16, 1903, of lung and heart ailments and was buried in the Del Rio cemetery. His shrewdness, audacity, unscrupulousness, and humor, aided by his knack for self-dramatization, made him an enduring part of American folklore.

15/07/2024

There's only one month left to make nominations for the Texas Historical Commission's Preservation Awards!

The TTHC offers annual awards to recognize worthy accomplishments and exemplary leadership in the preservation of Texas’ heritage. Learn more and nominate someone you know at thc.texas.gov/preserve/preservation-awards.

13/07/2024

Looking for something cool to do today. Check this out.

*Update* We will start tours immediately following parade! Come check out both of these historic sights and see all the hard work that has gone into preserving them!

12/07/2024

The Fredda Turner Durham Children's Museum is located at the Museum of the Southwest - Midland, Texas and provides fun for kids and families, with lots of interesting exhibits and hands-on activities!

The Museum officially reopened to the public on May 1, 2022. This reimagined, open and flexible space provides numerous learning opportunities and experiences for all ages. With traveling exhibitions and long-time favorites (such as My Town), there are new and exciting things to see each time you visit.

Plan your visit today at museumsw.org!

11/07/2024

Already proven entrepreneurs, Felipe and Celia Morales saw a need in Midland, Texas, for homemade Mexican food. Along with other family members, they operated several other businesses: a beauty salon, a barbershop, a record store and a financial and insurance company. However, Felipe and Celia decided to open a Mexican food restaurant.

Learn all about Casita Gerardo at authentictexas.com/casita-gerardo!

10/07/2024

Big Lake once had — you guessed it — a big lake. Or rather, a 2,100-acre natural depression that filled with rain and spring water. For centuries it attracted Natives, Mexican traders, and cattle drivers to the area. After 1900, it attracted Anglo settlers and the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railway of Texas, which established the town of Big Lake on its line. The springs has since dried up, and today the depression remains the state’s largest dry lake.

In 1923, another kind of liquid (petroleum) turned Big Lake into a boomtown when the Santa Rita No. 1 well blew in 14 miles west of town. A replica rig and state marker designate the site, just off US 67, as the discovery well of the Permian Basin. A working scale model of the Santa Rita No. 1 highlights oil boom-era exhibits at Big Lake’s Hickman Museum. Housed in a 1937 rock home, the museum also chronicles Indian and ranching history.

After the oil boom Big Lake became the seat of Reagan County which still governs from the historic 1927 courthouse. The former county seat, now the ghost town of Stiles, features ruins of its picturesque 1911 native stone county courthouse, visible just off state highway 137.

08/07/2024

Italian cypress trees towering over an otherwise sparse landscape connect the four cemeteries of the Del Rio Cemeteries Historic District. Established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the cemeteries illustrate the fusion of diverse cultures and the social and ethnic divisions in Del Rio.

The largest is Westlawn, which was originally known as the Public Cemetery. Several notable figures in Del Rio and Val Verde County history are buried here, including the city’s first mayor. An African American section is in the western part of the cemetery, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows fraternal organization has a section near the center.

The Masonic fraternal lodge purchased 10 acres adjacent to Westlawn in 1905; burials in the Masonic Cemetery are primarily grouped in family plots delineated with cement curbing. The southernmost entrance gate leads to the Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery, where colorful ceramic tiles depicting religious imagery grace many of the Hispanic gravestones. Look for star and leaning cross icons, which label birth and death dates.

Although it has no formal entrance or internal pathways, Saint Joseph’s Cemetery can be accessed from Sacred Heart Cemetery. It features modest, handmade grave markers, many of which are undated. The Del Rio Cemeteries District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

05/07/2024

In 1938, a pavilion was built over the Big Chief Spring in Fort Stockton, formally creating the Comanche Springs Pool! This spring was once the largest in the system and flowed a whopping 65 million gallons of water per day.

The pool is the site of Fort Stockton's annual Water Carnival held during the third weekend in July. Discover this unique location at Rooney Park near Historic Fort Stockton!

04/07/2024

04/07/2024

Happy Independence Day from all of us at the Texas Pecos Trail!

02/07/2024

A memorial in the truest sense, Andrews County Veterans Memorial was built in 2006 to honor Andrews Americans whose profound sacrifices for the nation can never be recognized by mere words. With its heroic eagle sculpture and detailed picture artwork, the memorial is a distinctive American interpretation of classic greatness.

As you walk through the front entrance, six-foot granite tablets are to the left and right of the entrance sidewalk. Beginning with the American Civil War and through the Fight Against Terrorism, each war is listed on a granite tablet stating the time period, history, conflict, and conditions our Veterans faced.

30/06/2024

We love Old Kate (and a fun scavenger hunt)!

30/06/2024

🤠🤠🤠

Time to Rodeo…Del Rio Tx

28/06/2024

The Devil’s Sinkhole, located a few miles northeast of Rocksprings along State Highway 377, is a National Natural Landmark and believed to be the largest known single-room cave in the state. It’s also home to millions of Mexican free-tailed bats from spring to fall.

The Sinkhole cavern, three hundred and fifty feet deep, has an abrupt opening as if someone had punched a hole in the surface. It drops in a long, chimney-like neck then ends in a broad bowl carved by water. The bowl, shaped like the bottom half of an hour glass, holds a mountainous cone of breakdown, the result of the neck collapsing layer upon layer all the way to the surface as the rock fell away and into the enormous cavern below.

The bats reside along the high ramparts of the bowl and the breakdown cone is layered several feet thick in their guano. The bats leave the Sinkhole in a nightly exodus, rising in a smoke-like tornado called a bat column, before riding the prevailing currents and feeding on insects thousands of feet in the air.

Devil’s Sinkhole State Natural Area bat flight observations can be arranged through the nonprofit Devil’s Sinkhole Society, a “friends of the Devil’s” organization formed in 2001 as a partnership with Texas Parks and Wildlife. The group’s Visitor Center is located on the corner of Rocksprings’ town square, just a block from the Historic Rocksprings Hotel.

27/06/2024

In 1887, Yldefonso Montalvo (1855-1941) built this home in historic Brackettville. The educated son of an English mother and a Mexican father, Montalvo and his wife Guadalupe raised nine children in the house. At the time, the property was home to gardens full of edible plants and orchards, a barn and numerous farm animals, and a hand-built rock well used by the larger community, which still exists today as a viable well.

Constructed using cedar posts, lath, and caliche, this modest two-room home is a good example of a folk-style hall-and-parlor residence built with local materials. The building was awarded the distinction as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1979, and was given Texas Historic Marker 3440, which it bears today.

26/06/2024

It's time again for the West of the Pecos Rodeo, the "Home of the World's First Rodeo," in Pecos! Since 1883, this rodeo has thrilled and delighted viewers from across the Pecos Trail Region.

Learn more at pecosrodeo.com!

26/06/2024

😍

26/06/2024

26/06/2024

Very cool!

26/06/2024

24/06/2024

Nestled in a bend of San Felipe Creek, the area surrounding Brown Plaza has been a gathering place for hundreds of years, as Native Americans and Spanish settlers were drawn to the San Felipe Springs. Later, it became the heart of Del Rio’s historic San Felipe barrio. Today, Del Rio residents and visitors now gather here for concerts, rallies, and celebrations. Dedicated on Cinco de Mayo in 1908, the plaza is now a central location to celebrate this holiday annually.

The plaza and its bandstand were restored in 1969, and several historic buildings remain on the square and surrounding blocks. A mural between the 1891 Amado Gutierrez Building and 1910 Santos S. Garcia Building depicts memories of students growing up on the Texas-Mexico border.

On the square at Brown Plaza, Casa de la Cultura has promoted Mexican American heritage through diverse classes and events since the late 1970s. Classes include Latino aerobics, piñata-making, guitar, and English language, while traditional Mexican celebrations such as Dia de los Mu***os and the Christmas Posada y Tamalada share the schedule with musical events and revolving art exhibits.

21/06/2024

The Old Las Lomas Hotel in Junction, originally named the Fritz Hotel, is known far and wide by its distinctive red tile roof and Spanish Colonial Revival style. The hotel currently sits vacant, but served as a haven for travelers from its construction in 1926 until it was later turned into apartments. The building has been vacant since the late 2010s, based on information from Junction locals.

The stunning structure was originally designed by an architecture firm out of San Antonio. The two-story building consists of a central tower, plain plastered walls, an arcaded porch facing the entrance court, and few decorative elements. The original roof tiles have been replaced with metal at some point.

Photo from Facebook user, Mark John Woodruff.

20/06/2024

For more than five decades, Odessa resident and Odessa Arts board member Steve Goff has been taking photographs. His latest award-winning collections, in fact, show the unique beauty of his very own city right along our Pecos Trail!

Steve taught at Odessa College for 37 years before retiring. He currently teaches one class per semester and is the namesake for Odessa College's Phillips Goff Gallery.

Congratulations, Steve!

Photo from the City of Odessa, Texas.

17/06/2024

Established in Pecos, Texas in 1962, The West of the Pecos Museum includes both the "Number 11" Saloon (built in 1896) and the Orient Hotel (built in 1904), which includes three full floors with more than 50 rooms of exhibits and activities.

Exhibits include pioneer and Indian artifacts, a rodeo & ranching collection, railroad memorabilia, African-American and Mexican-American heritage displays, replicated school rooms, doctor’s offices, and parlors, and more. And that's not even to mention their outdoor exhibits, including Centennial Park, Clay Allison’s Grave, Judge Roy Bean’s Courthouse and Saloon Replica, Mesquite House, Frying Pan Ranch Chuckwagon, Orient Hotel, and Historical Markers!

Learn more at westofthepecosmuseum.org.

16/06/2024

16/06/2024

One great thing about being part of the Texas Historical Commission is the support we receive from other sites and components in the agency. We received a visit from Jefferson Spilman, site manager at Fort Lancaster State Historic Site and Melissa Hagins, executive director of Texas Pecos Trail Region, who stopped by to deliver the latest issue of the Authentic Texas magazine. We also had a visit from Jonathan Failor from Washington on the Brazos State Historic Site.

16/06/2024

Happy Father's Day from all of us here at the Texas Pecos Trail!

15/06/2024

There are only two months left to nominate someone you know for a Texas Historical Commission Preservation Award!

Learn more and complete a nomination at thc.texas.gov/preserve/preservation-awards.

13/06/2024

Join our friends at the Bush Family Home State Historic Site to celebrate former President George H.W. Bush's 100th birthday on Thursday, June 13, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. There will be music, a crazy sock contest, a cookout, and more. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for kids 12 and under.

George H.W. Bush moved to West Texas in 1948 and lived in Midland from 1950-1959. The West Ohio Street house was the 2nd of three houses the Bush Family lived in the city. The home will be open for self-guided tours.

The Bush Family Home joined the Texas Historical Commission in 2023 and is one of 38 sites in the state of Texas. Its normal operating hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; the last tour begins at 4:15 p.m.

12/06/2024

Mark your calendars for Theater Thursday at Sibley Nature Center tomorrow, June 13, at 6 p.m. This event brings educational content to Midland on the second Thursday of each month.

Tomorrow, the center will show Life on our Planet Chapter 7: Inheriting the Earth, produced by Steven Spielberg and presented by Morgan Freeman.

The show will last just short of an hour. Admission is free and popcorn will be provided.