Pecos ( PAY-kəs) is the largest city in and the county seat of Reeves County, Texas, United States. It is in the valley on the west bank of the Pecos River at the eastern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, in the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas and just south of New Mexico’s border. Its population was 12,916 at the 2020 census. On January 24, 2012, Pecos City appeared on the Forbes 400 as the second-fastest growing small town in the United States. The city is a regional commercial center for ranching, oil and gas production, and agriculture. The city is most official for its attachment with the local farming of cantaloupes. Pecos claims to be the site of the world’s first rodeo upon July 4, 1883.

Pecos is one of the numerous towns in West Texas organized regarding a train depot during the construction of the Texas and Pacific Railway. These towns were once linked by the construction of U.S. Highway 80 and Interstate 20. Prior to the dawn of the railroad, a surviving camp existed reachable where cattle drives crossed the Pecos River. With the start of irrigation from underground aquifers, the city became a center of commerce for extensive local agricultural production of cotton, onions, and cantaloupes. The introduction of large-scale sulfur mining in bordering Culberson County during the 1960s led to significant economic and population growth. The addition was reversed after mining operations ceased in the 1990s.

In 1962, Pecos resident and tycoon Billie Sol Estes was indicted for fraud by a federal grand jury. Estes’ extensive machinations caused a national-level scandal, resulting in a distress at the Department of Agriculture. Oscar Griffin, Jr., of the Pecos Independent and Enterprise newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the story.

Pecos is the site of the largest private prison in the world, the Reeves County Detention Complex, operated by the GEO Group.