Museum Of The Desert Southwest

The Museum of the Desert Southwest

The Museum of the Desert Southwest is a museum of local and West Texas regional history located in a brick structure at 409 S. Gaston Street, off U.S. Route 385 in Crane, a community of fewer than four thousand residents and the seat of government of Crane County located thirty-two miles south of the larger city of Odessa. The museum was established in 1980.

The museum is near the Pecos River and its famous fording spot, Horsehead Crossing, the subject of a 1996 Patrick Dearen history, Crossing Rio Pecos, one of the Chisholm Trail series of western books.^[1] Several artifacts from the crossing are on display. There are a kitchen and a women's fashion room. Other exhibits recall pioneer ranch life, such as an 1890 Studebaker chuckwagon and a 48-piece spu-and-bit horse collection. There is a whiskey still from the era of prohibition and a hospital device that checked shoes for static electricity in the days when ether and chloroform were used as anesthesia. There are exhibits from the petroleum industry and fossils from nearby Castle Gap.^[2]

Exhibits also pay tribute to two western authors with roots in Crane County: Paul Patterson and his student and understudy, Elmer Stephen Kelton (1926-2009).

The museum is open year-round from to 1 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday; from May to September, it is also available from 9 a.m. to noon Monday through Saturday and Saturday afternoon from 1 to 5 p.m. and Sunday afternoon from 1 to 4 p.m. There is no admission charge.^[3]

The museum is operated by the Crane County Historical Association.

Chuckwagon exhibit

Model kitchen

Woman's fashion room

The Jaycee Creed

Elmer Kelton exhibit

References[edit]

External link[edit]

• Museum of the Desert Southwest - Facebook site