By Daniel Perez, El Paso Matters From hard-core historians to people interested in family trees – or peccadilloes – researchers will find the mother lode in the C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department at the top floor of UTEP’s University Library. The University of Texas at El Paso department houses about 800 collections that includes art, books, music, manuscripts, documents, photographs, microfilm, recordings, and personal papers of local artists, authors and politicians from municipal to federal.

“You don’t have to be special to use special collections,” quipped Claudia Rivers, head of the department. “Everyone can come.” The department welcomed about 2,500 visitors during the 2023-24 fiscal year. Of the guests, many were researchers who were interested in the Old West or milita

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