The Amarillo Public Library Photo Archive preserves and makes accessible hundreds of historical images including street scenes, portraits, landmarks, and local events that document the evolution of Amarillo and neighboring communities from the 1890s to the 1980s. Photographs are cataloged, digitized, and searchable online by subject or keyword. Patrons can view and download images for research, exhibits, genealogy, and educational projects. The original photographs and negatives are stored in climate‑controlled conditions for long‑term preservation.
The Bush Collection was given to the library in 1941 by Ruth Gentry Bush, widow of William Henry Bush. The collection of more than eight hundred items consists of books, drawings, narratives, and private papers on the history of the Panhandle, Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas, most of which date from 1807 to 1890. Subjects covered include overland journeys, early narratives, early biographies, captivity narratives, outlaws, government reports, the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, the Mexican War, reports of Catholic missionaries, the fur trade, Western trails, Texas rangers and sheriffs, Texas as a republic, Nile’s Weekly Register, and other early publications. Researchers may only use materials in this collection under the supervision of library staff, and none of the collection's items are subject to loaning privileges.
The Catholic Diocese of Amarillo gave the FitzSimon Collection to the library in 1975. Collected throughout his life by the Most Reverend Laurence Julius FitzSimon, D.D., the third Roman Catholic Bishop of Amarillo, this collection consists of more than four thousand historical books, documents, maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, and other materials published, compiled, or written on the history of Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and the Southwest on the part played by the Catholic Church in the development of the region. Subjects covered in the collection include Native American tribes and culture, agriculture, military history, folklore, oil, politics and government, history, education, railroads, economics, Mexico, biographies, bibliographies, explorations, missions, colonization, historical reviews of the Southwest, and religion – strong in Catholicism in the United States and also in sources of aid to the Church in the Southwest. Researchers may only use materials in this collection under the supervision of library staff, and none of the collection's items are subject to loaning privileges.
The John L. McCarty Papers were given to the library in 1976 by Mrs. Evelyn Jean Claytor and Mrs. Gertrude Kerr McCarty. This collection of notes, interviews, articles, photographs, unpublished theses, clippings, historical editions, and similar materials either written or collected by the late John L. McCarty are of great interest to researchers of the history, pioneer life, and area growth of the Texas Panhandle. The papers cover a wide variety of subjects, including bison hunting, Indian Wars, cowboys and the open range, pioneer farmers and ranchers, fences, towns of the Panhandle, life in the 1890s and 1900s, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and soil and water conservation studies. Each of the three hundred twenty-six folders, fifty-one bound volumes, and four boxes of material in the collection are described and partially indexed. Researchers may only use materials in this collection under the supervision of library staff, and none of the collection's items are subject to loaning privileges.
The library's yearbook holdings include titles from 1919 to the present day. The collection focuses on high schools and colleges in Amarillo and surrounding communities. It also contains some junior high and middle school yearbooks. Useful for genealogy, historical research, and reunion planning, these yearbooks are available for onsite viewing and scanning by request at the Downtown Library. The library welcomes donations of local yearbooks not already in the collection.