The Atlas Obscura Podcast · Thursday, September 10, 2026
Since 1981, the Sul Ross Desk on a hilltop near Sul Ross State University has been accompanied by notebooks, originally started by track team member Jim Kittchens. These notebooks, now numbering around 60 and stored in the university archives, contain writings, drawings, sketches, and poetry from visitors over four decades.
“Once the desk was placed, Jim put a notebook in it. He liked to use this notebook to keep track of his run times and the distances that he covered when he was out training. And soon, his friends on the track team found out about it. And then they started using the notebook too.”
“We have approximately about 60 of them. Notebooks, very sizes, of course. And like folders with like loose leaf paper or just things that people dropped off and left there. So what do people write?”
“Some of it is very contemplative. And some of it is very long. Like we've, I've seen some that are like a couple pages long. It's like, how long were you up there? And beautiful drawings and sketches and poetry that I don't know if they prepared ahead of time then just transcribed, or came up with while they were sitting at the desk. That's the beauty of it.”