Pecos, Texas, is presented as deeply West Texas in character, with a heritage tied to ranching, rodeo, frontier legend, and the Pecos River. Tales of the mythical cowboy Pecos Bill spread among range cowboys, who said he was the youngest of 18 children, lost from his family at a crossing of the Pecos River, raised by coyotes, and later celebrated in stories for impossible feats. Pecos also claims the world’s first rodeo, where in July 1883 cowboys from rival ranches competed for prizes and bragging rights, and Trav Windham of the Lazy Y won $40 by roping and tying his steer in 22 seconds on Oak Street. Reeves County covers 2,600 square miles of rolling to mountainous country, with large ranches, famous cantaloupes, San Solomon Springs in Madera Valley, Red Bluff Lake near the New Mexico line, and the Pecos River flowing south from the mountains southeast of Santa Fe into Texas. A century earlier, the river was a feared torrent for westbound settlers and marked entry into a lawless region associated with Judge Roy Bean far to the south. In 1881 the Texas & Pacific Railroad crossed Reeves County and established Pecos Station on the banks of the Pecos River. Pecos Callahan, son of the railway agent and postmaster, was the first white child born there, and in the lawless early years “Pecosin’” meant dumping murder victims into the river until county organization brought law to Pecos City. The old Orient Hotel later became the West of the Pecos Museum, preserving rooms and exhibits on frontier life, along with a courtyard containing the old jail and hanging tree, the oldest house in Pecos, and the grave of gunfighter Clay Allison. Allison, born in Tennessee around 1840, was remembered in legend as a Confederate spy and as the “Gentleman Gunfighter,” credited with killing 20 men and said to have died in 1887 when he was thrown from his wagon and crushed beneath its wheels on the way to his ranch from Pecos City. Pecos also features Maxey Park, where hundreds of aviation cadets trained during WWII and where visitors find exotic animals, prairie dogs, a botanical garden, and recreation areas, as well as access to Red Bluff Lake and Balmorhea State Park, where San Solomon Springs feed a large swimming pool.