Archives of the Big Bend receives TSLAC grant to digitize Harry Warren collection

-via news.sulross.edu–

A TexTreasures grant from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) will help to digitize the entire Harry Warren Papers collection beginning this fall at the Archives of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University in Alpine.

The collection is expected to be freely available to the public by Fall 2025.

The Harry Warren Papers consist of journals, correspondence, scrapbooks, biographical and historical materials, financial records, literary manuscripts, and published monographs by Warren (1859-1931), a historian, author, teacher, farmer, customs official, and attorney.

Warren took extensive notes of his travels, documented major events, and collected several first-hand accounts from people in our region who were traditionally silenced or ignored, including Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans. His journals (1891-1926) include accounts of several Texas borderland raids during the Mexican Revolution, as well as the only known contemporary account of the Porvenir Massacre. As such, they are consistently used and cited by researchers and students of Texas history, Mexican American history, borderland history, and military history throughout the state and region.

Interest in the journals has significantly increased since the 2022 archaeological excavation of the Porvenir Massacre site, which found U.S. Army ammunition fired from military-issued weapons alongside the Texas Ranger and civilian ammunition. The Warren collection is now one of the Archives’ most requested and widely used manuscript collections. While some of these requests have been from Sul Ross students and area researchers, most are from visitors, journalists, and researchers from outside of West Texas, with some requests coming from as far as the United Kingdom.

The primary purpose of this digitization project is to improve accessibility to Harry Warren’s journals for researchers. Currently, interested researchers need to either view circulation copies in person or submit a reproduction request and pay a fee for PDF scans. This project will provide instant and free digital access to high-quality scans of the original journals through the Archive of the Big Bend’s Preservica public portal and a grant-funded portable digital display kiosk.

This unmanned, contactless display is intended to increase access and encourage interest in the Harry Warren Collection and the Archives of the Big Bend to Sul Ross students and visitors and will be used at off-site Archives of the Big Bend outreach events, including the annual Border Region Archives Group (BRAG) Archive Bazaar, which consistently reaches hundreds of researchers and enthusiasts throughout West Texas and southern New Mexico.

The grant for $9,999 is just one of more than 40 this year from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services to the TSLAC under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act.

TSLAC awards competitive grants annually, as funding allows. For the 2025 grant cycle, TSLAC has awarded approximately $1.2 million in competitive grants. The TexTreasures Grant will provide assistance and encouragement to 12 libraries to provide access to their special or unique collections and to make information about those collections available to library users across the state.

“The Archive [sic] and its staff are an invaluable resource to journalists in Texas such as myself, and the Warren Collection is a singular lens into Texas history. In 2022, while working as Senior Editor for Texas Monthly, I created ‘White Hats,’ a six-episode podcast series on the history of the Texas Rangers,” said Jack Herrera, a journalist. “Warren’s journals were undoubtedly the most important documents I read during my eight months reporting across the state.”