Scholarship
for the
Last
Frontier
By David W. Keller
I
4
Letticia Wetterauer, courtesy of CBBS
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2015
n 1987 the Center for
Big Bend Studies
(CBBS) was established
at Sul Ross State
University to promote
interdisciplinary scholar-
ship on the culture and his-
tory of the Big Bend
region. The concept was
not a new one. By accident
or design, the Center was
picking up where the pio-
neering West Texas
Historical and Scientific
Society had left off some
20 years earlier. Starting in
1926 the Society, uniquely
composed of Sul Ross
professors and citizens
alike, conducted extensive
research and published 11
volumes on the region’s
history, folklore and its
natural and cultural histo-
ry. After the aging Society
began to decline in the
early 1970s the regional,
cultural scholarship fell by
the wayside.
That deficiency was
remedied by the newly
formed Center for Big
Bend Studies. Under the
guidance of the Center’s
first director, professor of
history Dr. Earl Elam, the
fledgling research institu-
tion soon gained regional
and statewide recognition.
In its first several years the
Center published the first
volume of the Journal of Big
Bend Studies, started an
annual newsletter and
hosted its first academic
conference.
After Elam’s retirement
in 1995, Robert J. Mallouf,
who had been Texas State
Archaeologist for the pre-
vious 14 years, replaced
Elam as the CBBS’s new
director. Under Mallouf’s
leadership, the CBBS’s
scope expanded signifi-
cantly with an upgraded
interdisciplinary agenda
and a renewed focus on
Big Bend archaeology.
The CBBS also introduced
the first archaeology and
anthropology courses to
the Sul Ross curriculum
and began offering con-
tractual archaeological
services.
In 2004 the CBBS
launched the Trans-Pecos
Archaeological Program
(TAP). It was an unprece-
dented interdisciplinary
research project designed
to bring our understanding
of past cultures of the Big
Bend up to the level
achieved in other parts of
the state. Although broad
in scope, the research
domains within TAP were
designed to address very
specific deficiencies in
regional cultural studies.
Accompanying TAP was
the creation of the Friends
of the Center for Big Bend
Studies—a
non-profit
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