Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum The largest history museum in Texas, founded in 1932. (Currently closed.)
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This unused oil field explosive torpedo spent the month of August on loan to the Bullock Texas State History Museum in A...
09/04/2026

This unused oil field explosive torpedo spent the month of August on loan to the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin as part of an Oil Well Extraction exhibit in their Texas History Galleries. This particular torpedo came from Borger, Texas, which began its oil boom in 1926.

Metal tubes like this one, filled with explosives, were used in fighting oil fires and increasing oil well production. To produce more oil, a tube filled with liquid nitroglycerin was lowered into the well casing. An explosion was triggered that shattered the surrounding rock, creating cracks that allowed oil to flow more freely.

Photo courtesy: Bullock Texas State History Museum

This 1912 photo from our archives is part of the Kay Shuey Palm (1885-1946) photograph collection. It shows a group of T...
09/04/2026

This 1912 photo from our archives is part of the Kay Shuey Palm (1885-1946) photograph collection. It shows a group of Texas Panhandle residents at what seems to be a Sunday School picnic at Tub Springs, which forms a side canyon behind Fortress Cliff on the eastern rim of Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

Here's a look behind the counter at Cal's Filling Station at PPHM. This life-sized replica of a vintage gas station is a...
09/03/2026

Here's a look behind the counter at Cal's Filling Station at PPHM. This life-sized replica of a vintage gas station is a focal point of our Panhandle Petroleum exhibit, which showcases how the Panhandle oil boom in the 1920s reshaped life in the High Plains.

Filling stations like this one served as the link between the oil fields and the daily consumer. Gas stations doubled as general stores where residents gathered for coffee and conversation, played games of dominoes and cards, or stopped for directions. These served as the center of community life for so many in the Texas Panhandle.

Here are a few pieces of petrified wood from PPHM's geology collection, some of which was discovered locally. Petrified ...
09/02/2026

Here are a few pieces of petrified wood from PPHM's geology collection, some of which was discovered locally. Petrified wood is an example of one way plant remains from millions of years ago have fossilized.

Believe it or not, the prehistoric Texas Panhandle was marked by dense forests before it became a semi-arid grassland, and when ancient trees died, some ended up buried beneath heavy layers of silt or sand, sealing them off from oxygen. This kept the wood from natural decay. Over millions of years, the plant cells were replaced by silica or quartz crystals.

The Dockum Group geological formation, visible in the walls of Palo Duro Canyon, contains these deposits. Local ranchers and geologists continue to find petrified wood in this region today.

This one-ton 1924 International Harvester Truck was built to withstand heavy use and became a common sight on local oil ...
09/01/2026

This one-ton 1924 International Harvester Truck was built to withstand heavy use and became a common sight on local oil fields during the Texas Panhandle's petroleum boom in the 1920s. Vehicles like this one hauled supplies, building materials, equipment and workers as motorized trucks began to replace wagons and teams. It could reach 25 miles an hour.

Donald Webb owned and restored this particular truck prior to 1975. After that, Ira L. Loftin, vice president of the First National Bank in Canyon, acquired the truck and used it to advertise the bank in parades. When Loftin donated this truck to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society in 1983, it was driven to the museum under its own power.

08/31/2026

CANYON, Texas — A collection of works on a universal medium is on view now in a collaborative exhibition in West Texas A&M University’s Dord Fitz Formal Art Gallery.

That's a lot of teeth for a former resident of Potter County. This phytosaur skull is one of our favorite fossils, and n...
08/28/2026

That's a lot of teeth for a former resident of Potter County. This phytosaur skull is one of our favorite fossils, and not just because it was discovered here in the Texas Panhandle. From the late Triassic period (more than 200 million years ago), these crocodile-like reptiles would have reached up to 25 feet long.

They feasted on fish and other animals in streams and lakes. Phytosaurs were the dominant, apex predators of their freshwater ecosystems, living in what was then a lush, densely vegetated tropical river basin.

This is the Heathkit HS-3860, a high-end laptop computer kit released in late 1989, generously donated to the PPHS colle...
08/27/2026

This is the Heathkit HS-3860, a high-end laptop computer kit released in late 1989, generously donated to the PPHS collection by Cindy Sharp as part of the Susanne and Jack Bullock Estate.

This model retailed in 1989 for a steep $5,000 and change. Its high-contrast, flourescent-backlit LCD screen was considered a major technological leap forward. It came with a nickel-cadmium battery pack that would fully charge in about two hours and give users about 2 hours and 15 minutes of run-time.

The laptop's 40MB hard drive was considered a high-capacity luxury at the time. Today, 40MB isn't even enough room to download the Facebook or Instagram app.

This photo from around 1955 shows a group of Carver High School teachers in Amarillo. Carver opened in 1947 as a combine...
08/27/2026

This photo from around 1955 shows a group of Carver High School teachers in Amarillo. Carver opened in 1947 as a combined 1st through 12-grade school for Black residents of the city living in the North Heights neighborhood. The segregated school was led by 13 teachers, many of whom taught multiple subjects.

The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, after which local schools began taking steps to address desegregation. After the Amarillo Independent School District officially integrated in 1966, more than 100 students transferred out of Carver High School and began attending other high schools. In the spring of 1967, the AISD school board voted to close Carver High School entirely, converting it to a junior high.

This 1889 pastel painting by Frank Reaugh is called "Watering the Herd." According to the artist, it's based on a scene ...
08/25/2026

This 1889 pastel painting by Frank Reaugh is called "Watering the Herd." According to the artist, it's based on a scene he observed west of Henrietta in Clay County, Texas (a few miles outside today's Wichita Falls). "It was the last water these cattle got before they were loaded on the train for St. Louis," Reaugh once wrote about the work.

Reaugh exhibited "Watering the Herd," at the National Academy of Design in New York and lent the work to the Texas and Pacific Railway for promotional purposes.

More than 700 of Reaugh’s works are in the PPHM collection and have been displayed on a rotating basis in our Frank Reaugh gallery.

Address

2503 4th Avenue
Canyon, TX
79015

Opening Hours

Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

(806) 651-2244

Website

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