Ranching, Oil and Gas, and Agriculture is synonymous with Pecos. We stayed at TRA-Park which is an RV park associated with the Escapees RV Club but at this park you don’t have to be a member of the Escapees. That becomes evident as soon as you park, as there are many many workers staying here with big trucks and equipment, mostly working in the Oil and Gas “Farming” business. There are Pumpers everywhere in the fields. There are so many they could be considered the State Bird, with their heads bobbing up and down in the fields for miles.
PECOS is the site of the Worlds First Rodeo in 1883. I think the town today survives on the transient workers who come for periods of time to work in an oil field. I never did find what I would consider the main down town area. We come through Pecos on our East/West journeys only because we don’t like traveling through El Paso. It’s not a town I would want to spend much time in.
A Place I did enjoy visiting was a Ghost town. Its called ORLA and it is about 38 miles north of Pecos on State Highway 285. If you enjoy photographing old buildings, its worth stopping at near sunset or early morning. the buildings are very old, vacant but not totally broken down. I’ll share some of my photos here of what I saw. Also the oil rigs around here seem to be abandoned too and were interesting to photograph. The population is a total of 2 they say and a Post Office and that’s it. The town was established in 1890 during the building of the Pecos Valley Railroad. The post office first opened in 1906. The town is just a collection of old buildings, lizards and weeds, but the buildings are great models for photographs.
Here are some Interesting Oil pumps out in the weeds of Orla, Texas.
More Window Shopping:
Two nights in Pecos and today we head to New Mexico to photograph the birds at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.
