Border Heritage Center

The Border Heritage Center (BHC) was formed in 1995 by combining three major library collections - Southwest, RAZA, and Genealogy - into one department of the Main Library. The El Paso Public Library began collecting and preserving materials on the history and culture of El Paso and the Southwest as early as 1902. These special collections fall under the perview of Border Heritage as well. Materials from our physical collections comprise the digital collections you'll find here.

Our mission is to acquire, preserve, and make accessible materials relating to the history and culture of El Paso and the surrounding Southwest region.
Thereby ensuring our local history is available for generations to come!

For further information about BHC's collections, please see below.

Collections
Southwest RAZA Genealogy
Contains current and historical materials about west Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Reference and circulating materials are available. The RAZA Collection was inspired by the Chicano pride movement of the 1970's and continues to document the culture, history, and literary works of Mexican Americans across the nation. Reference and circulating materials are available. The collection holds resources related to family history research. Genealogy guides and manuals, county histories, sources relating to specific ethnicities and heritages, vital record indexes, census records, cemetery records, and much more are included. The Genealogy Collection is reference material and unavailable for circulation.

Periodicals and Microforms

Border Heritage holds a wide variety of magazines and journals complementing the Southwest, Genealogy, and RAZA collections. Examples include: Texas Monthly, Southwest Art, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, and Internet Genealogy.

 

Local El Paso newspapers are available on microfilm. These include:

  • El Paso Times (1881-present)
  • El Paso Herald-Post (1881-1997)
  • El Continental (1927-1972)
  • Lonestar (1881-1886)
  • Valley Independent (1946-1972)

The Chicano Serials Collection (dates vary) features newspapers, newsletters, and other Chicano related serials documenting the Chicano experience.

Archives and Special Collections

The Border Heritage Center holds over 70 archival collections that document the history, community life, and culture of El Paso and the surrounding Southwest region. The collections are comprised of a variety of materials including business and institutional records, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, glass and film negatives, scrapbooks, architectural drawings, maps, political papers, postcards and rare books.

 

Some of our more popular special collections are:

  • El Paso City Directories - available from 1885 - present
  • Vertical Files - subject files relating to El Paso, Mexico, the Southwest, and prominent individuals. Files are mostly comprised of newspaper clippings but may contain magazine/journal articles, brochures, pamphlets and other ephemera.
  • Yearbook Collection - yearbooks from several local high schools are available, however, series are not complete and not every high school is represented. 

In time, we hope to include a greater variety of materials from these collections into the digital collections!