Escondido, CA – Escondido Public Library is home to the Pioneer Room, a unique historical archive. Established in 1992 with a bequest from local historian Frances Beven Ryan, the Pioneer Room houses historical documents, photographs, and other reference materials on people, families, and structures local to Escondido.
From June 15 to December 31, the Pioneer Room will host a new photograph exhibition, All Together Now: The Palomar Family YMCA. Beginning with the Hi-Y club in 1911, the Palomar Family YMCA has long since been a place for community and leadership. With images from the YMCA Photograph Collection, the new exhibition highlights the many people, programs, and events at the ‘Y’ from 1965 through the early 1970s and is free to view during Pioneer Room operating hours.
On Thursday June 29, Pioneer Room volunteer and genealogy researcher Beth McIntyre will teach a beginning genealogy workshop in the Pioneer Room from 6:30
p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The program will teach participants how to begin tracing family history using the Library’s database subscriptions from Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.
Participants are encouraged to bring or write down information found in family documents, Bibles, birth certificates, and photo albums. The program is free of charge, but space is limited and participants should register at www.escondido.org/register.
Many of the Pioneer Room collections are available for online browsing at https://cdm17446.contentdm.oclc.org/. Collections are digitized and uploaded frequently, offering a dynamic and ever-growing repository of historic content available 24/7.
For more information on the Pioneer Room, visit https://library.escondido.org/escondidohistory or contact Archival Specialist Ashley Hays, at 760-839-4612 or ashley.hays@escondidolibrary.org. Pioneer Room programs are free, open to the public, and sponsored by the Friends of the Pioneer Room. The Pioneer Room is located at 237 S. Kalmia St., Escondido, CA 92025 in the building just in front of the Library, on the south side of the 3rd Street parking lot. It is open from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursdays, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
