El Paso, TX

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El Paso is the seat of El Paso County in the U.S. state of Texas and part of the American Southwest. According to the 2006 U.S. Census population estimates, the city had a population of 609,415.   It is the sixth-largest city in Texas and the 21st-largest city in the United States, as well as the 7th fastest growing large city in the nation from 2000-2006. Its metropolitan area covers all of El Paso County. The metropolitan area has a population of 736,310.

El Paso stands on the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte), across the border from Ciudad Juárez. The image to the right, showing Downtown El Paso and Juárez, with the Juárez Mountains in the background, shows how the cities are conjoined. The two cities (Juárez was formerly El Paso del Norte, the Pass to the North) form a combined Metropolitan Area with a combined population of 2,049,648, with Juárez accounting for 2/3 of the Metro population.

El Paso is home to the University of Texas at El Paso (founded in 1914 as The Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy). Fort Bliss, a major United States Army installation, lies to the east and northeast of the city, extending north up to the White Sands Missile Range. The Franklin Mountains extend into El Paso from the north and nearly divide the city into two sections, with downtown connecting the two sections at the south end of the mountain range.

Pre-Columbian era

Archeological evidence at the Keystone Wetlands and Hueco Tanks sites indicates thousands of years of human settlement within the El Paso region (see: Mogollon culture). A hueco is a Spanish term for a hollowed out cavity for holding water, or for pounding maize. The inhabitants during this era were maize farmers. One of the two thousand images at Hueco Tanks is of a black and white figure of Tlaloc, the Mesoamerican rain god; most of the images are of people and animals. The Manso, Suma, and Jumano Indians were identified as present by the earliest Spanish explorers. These people ultimately became assimilated into the local settler population, becoming part of the Mestizo culture that is prevalent in Mexico and is visible throughout the Southwest. Others integrated themselves with the different Mescalero Apache bands that for many years roamed the region.

Arrival of Spaniards

 Spaniard Don Juan de Oñate was the first European explorer to arrive at the Rio Grande near El Paso, and ordered his expedition party to rest and conducted a mass in celebration of thanksgiving on April 30, 1598.

El Paso del Norte (the present day Ciudad Juárez), was founded on the south bank of the Río Bravo del Norte, (Rio Grande) in 1659 by Spanish conquistadors. Being a grassland then, agriculture flourished and vineyards and fruits constituted the bulk of the regional production. The Spanish Crown and the local authorities of El Paso del Norte had made several land concessions to bring agricultural production to the northern bank of the river in present day El Paso. However, the Apaches dissuaded production and settlers to cross the river. The water provided a natural defense against them.

In 1680, after the successful Pueblo Revolt that decimated the Spanish colonies in northern New Mexico, El Paso became the base for Spanish governance of the territory of New Mexico. From El Paso, the Spaniards led by Diego de Vargas, grouped once again to recolonize the precious Spanish territory that was centered in Santa Fe and stretched from Socorro (New Mexico) to the areas that included Taos.

Historical records indicated that the first agricultural enterprise in the area was Ponce de León Ranch, on land granted in 1825.

 Texas independence

 El Paso was the southernmost locality of the Provincia de Nuevo Mexico (modern New Mexico). It communicated with Santa Fe and Mexico City by the Royal Road. Few foreign travelers, outside of Spanish merchants and officials, ventured that far north. It took six months for a trading caravan to reach Mexico City. Although American spies, traders and fur trappers had visited the area since 1804, notably Zebulon Pike, American settlers only began to stay for good, in significant numbers, after the Mexican-American War in 1849.

Although there weren’t any combats in the region during the Mexican Independence, Paso del Norte experienced the negative effects it had on the trade of its wines and produce that kept the town alive. It also experienced a major avulsion that left the towns of Ysleta, San Elizario and Socorro on the other side of the Rio Grande.

In the first Mexican constitution (1824), given the dominance that chihuahuan merchants had on New Mexico, Paso del Norte went to the State of Chihuahua after being part of New Mexico for 200 years. The town elected its first local government in 1825 and opened the first official school in 1829.

The Texas revolution (1836) was not felt in the region. The area was never considered part of Texas until 1848. The Battle of El Brazito near Las Cruces was fought by Missouri volunteers led by Col. Alexander William Doniphan, for whom Doniphan Drive was named, in El Paso. Given the blurry reclamations of the Texas Republic that wanted a chunk of the Santa Fe trade, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo effectively made the settlements on the north bank of the river a formal American settlement, separate from Old El Paso de Norte on the Mexican Side.

The present Texas-New Mexico boundary placing El Paso on the Texas side was drawn in the Compromise of 1850.

A number of important developments during the 1850s shaped the character of the area north of the river. A settlement on Coons’ Rancho called Franklin became the nucleus of El Paso, Texas. El Paso County was established in March 1850, with San Elizario as the first county seat. The United States Senate fixed a boundary between Texas and New Mexico at the thirty-second parallel, thus largely ignoring history and topography. A military post called The Post opposite El Paso (meaning opposite El Paso del Norte, across the Rio Grande) was established in 1854, and the Butterfield Overland Mail arrived in 1858. A year later pioneer Anson Mills completed his plat of the town, calling it El Paso, a name that resulted in endless confusion until the name of the town across the river, El Paso del Norte, was changed to Ciudad Juárez in 1888.

El Paso was incorporated in 1873 and encompassed the small area communities that had developed along the river (Magoffinsville, Concordia, Hart’s Mill).

The Confederate States of America

During the Civil War, Texas, along with most other Southern states, seceded from the Union to join the Confederate States of America. The Confederate cause was met with great support from El Paso residents. Confederate forces occupied Fort Bliss in 1861, retaken by Union forces in August, 1862. After the war was concluded, the town’s population began to grow.

County seat at Tigua land in Ysleta

The Tigua Indians had occupied at least 36 sq mi (93 km) of land around Ysleta, land that King Charles V of Spain had deeded to them, since the 1680 pueblo revolt against the Spaniards in New Mexico.  In 1874, the Texas Legislature passed “An Act to Repeal an Act to Incorporate the Town of Ysleta in El Paso County”, with a six-month delay of effect that resulted in the conveyance of over 500 parcels of Tigua property to Americans. The Tiguas lost almost all of their land.

The El Paso county seat was moved to Ysleta that year, from San Elizario, and stayed until it was moved to El Paso in 1883. These were the years of the San Elizario Salt War and other conflicts between the Mexicans, the Americans, the Tigua, and the Apaches.

Real “Wild West”

With the arrival of the Southern Pacific, Texas and Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroads in 1881, the population boomed to 10,000 by the 1890 census. With a tempting green valley and a nearly perfect climate year-around, the town attracted a constant stream of newcomers: gamblers, gunfighters, thieves, cattle and horse rustlers, murderers, priests, Chinese railroad laborers, prostitutes, and entrepreneurs.

After the arrival of the railroads, El Paso become a boomtown: it earned the nickname “Six Shooter Capital” because of its lawlessness, with “scores of saloons, dance halls, gambling establishments, and houses of prostitution lining the main streets. El Paso hired a town marshal with rough reputation, Dallas Stoudenmire, who was known to shoot first and ask questions later. The “Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight” took place here on April 14, 1881. This was prior to the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Stoudenmire, the sixth marshal in eight months, was hired to “clean” and tame a remote, violent and wild town. Stoudenmire was an effective marshal due to his fierce reputation and dexterity with his pistols. He effectively intimidated a violence-hardened town and used fear to control the City Council. On May 28, 1882, the City Council announced they were firing the marshal. Stoudenmire learned of this discussion, he entered the Council Chambers; they were terrified and remained quiet. Stoudenmire strolled up and down the chamber as he scolded, cussed profanities and threatened to shoot. In a blink of eyes, he pulled out and twirled his pistols as he growled, “I can straddle every God-damn aldermen on this council!” Council members quickly voted unanimously to retain Stoudenmire as their town marshal. Stoudenmire glared at them for a few seconds before he calmed down and put away his pistols. Knowing Stoudenmire’s fearsome reputation, the Mayor defused a tense situation by calling for an abrupt adjournment. Stoudenmire exited the Chamber and a potential fatal incident was averted.

In 1883 the county seat was moved from Ysleta, Texas to El Paso. This was decided in a strongly disputed election in which counted votes were nearly three times the number of voters.

Prostitution and gambling flourished until World War I, when the Department of the Army pressured El Paso authorities to crack down on vice. Many of these activities continued in neighboring Ciudad Juárez, especially during the Prohibition, which benefited bars and saloons on the Mexican side of the border.

 The Mexican revolution

 The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) began in 1910, and Ciudad Juárez was the focus of intense fighting. Occasionally, stray shots killed civilians on the El Paso side. El Paso became a center of intrigue as various exiled leaders including Victoriano Huerta and (for a time) Pancho Villa were seen in the city. In January 1914, General John Joseph Pershing was stationed at Fort Bliss, where he was responsible for security along the border and mounted the ill fated Pancho Villa Expedition against Pancho Villa after the infamous raid on Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916. The cavalry under Pershing were paid in gold, in competition with Pancho Villa, who offered $50 per machine gun. (When World War I began, Pershing’s cavalry had to remain in the Army for the duration of the war, and were no longer paid in gold.) During this time period many rich people from Mexico fled to El Paso to escape Pancho Villa.

 The roaring 20s to World War II

 Beginning in the 1920s and into the 1930s, El Paso became the birthplace of several locally and nationally well-known businesses and events. In 1930, Conrad Hilton opened his first highrise hotel in El Paso, the now Plaza Hotel. The Plaza Theatre opened on September 12, 1930.

In 1934, Walter Varney and Louis Mueller established the passenger airline called Varney Speed Lines in El Paso and operated out of the old El Paso Municipal Airport (1934–36) and then the El Paso International Airport. After the airline was taken over in 1937 by Robert Six, he relocated its headquarters to Denver, Colorado and renamed it with the more recognized name of Continental Airlines, as it is known to this day. Although Continental Airlines would have its headquarters stationed in Denver, El Paso was still a major hub for the airline up until the late 1980s.

The college football Sun Bowl has been held in El Paso since 1936.

Post-war era

After World War II, Wernher von Braun and other German rocket scientists were brought to Fort Bliss in El Paso, along with many of the V2 rockets and rocket parts, starting the American rocket program; they were later moved to Huntsville, Alabama. One V2 rocket is still on display at Fort Bliss. The popular drink, the Margarita, was another famous invention given a home in El Paso. It was first mixed in the El Paso-Juárez area at Tommy’s Place Bar on July 4, 1945 by Francisco “Pancho” Morales. Morales originally left bartending in Mexico to become a US citizen. He is listed in the Texas Almanac’s Sesquicentennial Edition (1857-2007, under M) Obituaries of famous Texans. His story is best captured in a October 1973 Texas Monthly article “The Man Who Invented the Margarita” by Brad Cooper, and later in his obituary in the Washington Post on January 2,1997.

From World War II until the 1980s, El Paso boomed into a sprawling city. The expansion of Fort Bliss from a frontier post to a major Cold War military center brought in thousands of soldiers, dependents, and retirees. The industrial economy was dominated by copper smelting, oil refining, and the proliferation of low wage industries (particularly garment making), which drew thousands of Mexican immigrants. New housing subdivisions were built, expanding El Paso far to the west, northeast and east of its original core areas.

With the election of Raymond Telles, the city’s first Hispanic mayor in 1957, the demand for civil rights amongst the Hispanic population began. Stretching into the tumultuous 1960s, and converging with America’s anti-war and civil rights demonstrations, great strides were achieved that became evident in the 1970s.

In 1963, the U.S. agreed to cede Chamizal, a long-disputed part of El Paso, to Mexico due to changes in the course of the Rio Grande, which forms the international boundary between the two countries. The area boundaries were rationalized and the Rio Grande was re-channelled. A former island in the river was re-developed. The Chamizal National Memorial, administered by the National Park Service is now a major park in El Paso; El Chamizal is the corresponding park in Juárez.

Since 1990, the local economy has been adversely affected by competition with low wage labor abroad, and the closure of the main copper smelter due to fluctuating metal prices, and excessive lead contamination found throughout many of the surrounding areas. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 affected the local economy, with transport, retail, and service firms expanding, and the accelerated loss of many industrial jobs. El Paso is sensitive to changes in the Mexican economy and the regulation of cross border traffic; the Mexican peso devaluation of late 1994 and increasingly stringent controls of cross border traffic after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack were felt strongly in El Paso. (In contrast to almost every other border city and popular belief, the commercial traffic at the ports of entry went un-interrupted during the immediate aftermath of 9/11.)

Since the 1849 establishment of Fort Bliss in the El Paso area, El Paso has seen many booms in population. More recently, the BRAC commission has marked the base to receive more than 18,000 troops, which is estimated to add 547 million dollars to the El Paso economy. The expected 50,000 people destined for El Paso (18,000 troops & 30, 000 family members) will bring to El Paso a rise in population that has not been seen since the Mexican Exodus of the 1910s in which the town’s population grew by at least 60,000 people that were trying to escape the carnage of the Mexican Revolution.

Recent city-wide projects funded through the election of bonds have once again pushed the urban sprawl onward for El Paso. The most prominent of these projects was the complete refurbishment of the Plaza Theatre in Downtown El Paso. The project was completed on March 17, 2006 at a cost of $38 Million. With the completion of a new freeway on the city’s eastern edge, the city should experience the usual urban sprawl that accompanies such construction. With the arrival of military personnel and expansion of Biggs Army Airfield, the city is also constructing a new “Inner Loop” (Loop 375 to Fred Wilson Avenue) that will connect the eastern section of the city to the Army Airfield. Once completed, Biggs Army Airfield is expected to be larger than the current space at Fort Bliss.

Also of concern is how the large increases of population in Cd. Juárez will affect El Paso. Historically, these two towns have always been interconnected. Already evident is the air quality and traffic flowing inside the El Paso area, for these respective figures reflect the values of a metro area that is populated by at least two-million people. Many underestimate the area’s infrastructure needs by allocating resource values for only the El Paso population and not the metropolitan population that is interconnected chiefly through the actions of commerce that stems from El Paso, Cd. Juárez, and the New Mexico cities of Las Cruces, Santa Teresa, Sunland Park and Alamogordo.