El Paso History: Special Collections

Contains more than 800 photographs documenting El Paso Black history. Includes images of organizations such as Douglass School and Shilo Baptist Church, as well as prominent individuals and ordinary citizens. Also includes some news clippings and ephemera.

Contains correspondence, letters of incorporation, photographs, memos, newsletters, newspaper clippings, general journal ledgers, merchandising printouts, and other business and financial records. The records document the officers, stores, finances, operations, and employees of the company.

During his tenure in the Southwest, Sonnichsen was the President of the Texas Folklore Society (1935-1936), President of the Western Literature Association (1966), President of the Texas Association of Graduate Schools (1966-1967), Sheriff of the El Paso Remuda of the Westerners (1967), President of the Western Writers of America (1977), President of the Western History Association (1966), and a member of the Executive Council of the Southwestern Literature Association. He also authored several classic histories of El Paso. The C. L. Sonnichsen Papers, span dates 1861-1991, bulk 1921-1991, consist primarily of research materials, correspondence and manuscripts dealing with the books Sonnichsen wrote over a fifty year period. Included are correspondence, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, photographs, maps, scrapbooks, oral history interviews, research notes, theses, pamphlets, cassette and magnetic tapes, notecards, published material, personal materials that deal mostly with his education and teaching experience, and awards.

Contains: 344 photographic prints.; 15 photographic negatives.; 42 postcards.

Consists of materials relating to the legal and political career of Robert Ewing Thomason. Materials include biographical information, newspaper clippings, correspondence, photographs, scrapbooks, a bible, notebooks, legal records, and a typed, unpublished manuscript of a book written by Thomason titled "Noted Cases I Have Tried." Also included are reports and photographs documenting the findings of a congressional delegation that investigated Nazi war crimes at the end of World War II.

After taking over the studio following Feldman's death in 1923, Stout designed a Spanish-style building for the photographic business at 1330 Montana Street, and the business became the Stout-Feldman Studio. The studio continued to taike photographis of local residents, buildings, and events and took yearly photographs of students and organizations at local schools and colleges, including the Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy (latter caller Texas Western College and the University of Texas at El Paso) and New Mexico Colege A&M (later known as New Mexico State University). After Samuel Stout's death in 1954, his son walter continued the studio until the late 1960s. The UTEP Library purchased the collection from Achiles Studio after the negatives had been stored in the studio's basement for many years.
Not all items in collection are digitalized.

Consists of the personal papers of Dr. Wilbert H. Timmons concerning his life and career as professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso. Subject focus is predominantly on the history of El Paso, Texas as well as the Southwest and Mexico. Mexican-American borderlands studies are also a major theme. Materials include correspondence, books, maps, research notes, dissertations and theses, newsletters, realia, photocopies of articles from both periodicals and encyclopedias, historical documents, faculty and seminar papers, computer diskettes, photographs, and microfilm.

Most of the photographs in this collection are from the early work of the Casasola Photograph Studio. Since Mr. Alfonso Casasola died in 1948, work by other photographers is also included in this collection.

His papers as Director of the local office of the National Catholic Welfare Conference document the role of the Catholic Church in immigration and social work on the U.S. Mexican border. He assisted numerous religious orders expelled from Mexico during the post-revolutionary governments persecution of the Church in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as individual immigration and naturalization cases. Included in his papers are the minutes and correspondence from conferences of various local Mexican American political groups of the 1930s that fought for respect and equal rights for Mexicans, such as Sociedades Latino Americanas. Correspondence, yearbooks, scrapbooks and photographs of predominantly Mexican Catholic parishes chronicle the history of El Pasos Mexican American community from the 1920s to the 1960s. The activities of the Bishop and Diocese of El Paso, the Knights of Columbus, El Paso County Relief Board, and early veterans groups, civic groups, charities, orphanages, and schools are related through his correspondence and photograph collection. The Chamizal Settlement is recorded in Calleros correspondence and collection of newspaper articles about the dispute. The papers from his extensive business interests reflect the affairs of the local Mexican American community. Calleros local history columns in the El Paso Times, copies of his publications, and historical research are included in this series as well. Many of the newspapers, newsletters, journals and pamphlets in the Calleros Papers relate to historical events in El Paso, Juárez and the Southwest. The Calleros Papers contain postcards from the Southwest United States and Europe. Rare photographs of Catholic missions and clergy, early religious processions, the construction of Mt. Cristo Rey, Mexican-American parish activities, the Tigua Indians, and historical photographs of early El Paso families and events are also part of the collection.

Consists chiefly of materials concerning Joseph M. Ray's years as president of Texas Western College (later the University of Texas at El Paso), as well as research notes and manuscript drafts of books that he edited after he stepped down as president and became a member of the graduate faculty at UTEP. The Associations series includes correspondence, memos, bulletins, meeting minutes, and journals; the Notebooks series includes daily notes that Ray kept in a shorthand; the Scrapbooks series includes newspaper clippings that Ray glued into phone books, notebooks, and magazines; the Speech Files series includes speeches pertaining to the 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns and elections, as well as political figures; the Subject Files series includes articles, periodicals, annual reports, and miscellaneous items; the Publications series includes drafts of books and research notes; the Photographs series includes images of a group assembled in the Robert A. Taft Institute of Government; and the Citations, Awards, and Realia series includes brass, stone, and paper awards as well as a set of Dictabelt audio recording tapes that were used during an interview with Robert Ewing Thomason.

The Belle Christie Critchett papers date 1915 1968, bulk 1918-1935. Types of records include correspondence, clippings, publications and other printed material, maps, posters, songs, a glass lantern slide, and photographs. Original clippings were photocopied and discarded due to their extremely poor condition, except when noted in the container list. Additionally, some whole newspapers were in such poor condition that they were unable to be photocopied and were disposed of the title and date of these newspapers are listed in the Notes to the Researcher.