Woody Guthrie Folk Music Center

Woody Guthrie came to Pampa from Oklahoma at seventeen, into an oil boomtown. Oil had been found in 1926, the Cabot company built the first of its carbon black plants in 1927, and the town took the county seat in 1928. From 1930 to 1935 Guthrie worked as a soda jerk at the Harris Drug Store on South Cuyler Street. There, by the center's account, he found his first guitar, and he learned to play it in Pampa and joined other musicians playing at local events. He also spent long hours reading in the city library. He left for California in 1937.

The drugstore building is now the Woody Guthrie Folk Music Center. It tells his Pampa years, sells books, records and shirts, and is above all a place to play. On Friday evenings from 6 to 8:30 anyone can bring an instrument to the jam session, or sit and listen. About once a month the center holds a community concert, usually on a Tuesday or Thursday evening, for a suggested donation of five dollars.

In 2025 the center took a program called Walking Woody's Road to more than 400 elementary school children in Pampa and nearby towns, telling them about his time here and the Dust Bowl and singing This Land Is Your Land.