
The east side of Pecos was historically the lower-income Mexican American and African American sector of town. The blocks of E. 4th and E. 5th streets between S. Cedar and S. Pecan streets contain a forlorn but architecturally telling array of early-twentieth-century vernacular West Texan buildings, widely spaced in the flat, largely treeless landscape. Originally serving Spanish-speaking Catholics, Santa Rosa de Lima is a rock-built, simplified Spanish Mission–style church, with an arched entrance with prominent voussoirs and a curved gable. The bell tower contains a niche with a statue of Mary. Behind the church and rectory the block is filled out with a one-story, rock-built parish school organized around an interior patio.