Tag: Waco

(Digital Collections) Hucksters, Elevator Operators and Itinerant Scandinavian Pastors: A Sampling of Tidbits from the Waco City Directories

Last week, we unveiled a multimedia project we created wherein we mapped the home addresses of Baylor students from 1913-1914. The info we used to plot those addresses came from the Waco City Directories, an invaluable reference for Waco researchers that includes addresses, phone numbers and other information about early Wacoans. Today, we’re offering a smorgasbord of fun finds from…

(Digital Collections) Bonnie and Clyde (and Pat) and The Texas Collection Artifact That Ties Them Together

Frank Jasek, the library’s resident bookbinder and preservationist extraordinaire, wheeled the book truck into my office, his face aglow with mischief. “Have you ever seen one of these before?” he asked, gesturing to a large bound volume measuring about a foot tall by two feet wide. The words “CALABOOSE REGISTER” were stamped on its cover. “No,” I answered Frank. “I…

(Digital Collections) Bringing Cartography, Digitization and Texana Together for a Limited Time Via Our Digital Collections [UPDATED]

If you’ve followed our blog for awhile, you may recall a post about the special digitization equipment we utilize here at the Riley Digitization Center, including our large format map scanner, the Cruse CS-285. Well, the “big guy” got a workout this past summer when we digitized a number of rare and interesting maps from The Texas Collection in preparation…

(Digital Collections) Hidden in Plain Sight: Looking Closer at the Diamond Jubilee, Baylor University, 1920

Baylor University was in the mood to celebrate in 1920, for that was the year of its diamond jubilee. Seventy-five years earlier, in the Washington County town of Independence, the university was established and named for Judge R.E.B. Baylor; the ensuing decades had seen it grow into a thriving institution in a new city, Waco. This photograph was taken on…