Since this was our last full day in the El Paso area, we decided it was time to take a walk downtown and check out Old El Paso. In 1581, the first Spaniards arrived and marked the "El Paso del Rio del Norte" or the passage over the river to the north. It wasn't until 1598, that Spain officially took possession and headed north to colonize north-central New Mexico. After about 80 years of colonization, the local Indians finally got fed up and pushed the Spanish out of New Mexico. So, in 1680 most of the Spanish colonists moved into the El Paso Valley. Towns sprung up along the Rio Grande centered around the Catholic Missions.
In 1827, Juan Maria Ponce de Leon built a ranch on what is now the San Jacinto Plaza. After the the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846, Mr. Ponce de Leon sold his ranch to Benjamin Franklin Coons, who built a general store. It wasn't long before houses began popping up and the town of Franklin was born. By 1859, a city plan was approved and the town was renamed El Paso. As for the square, it too went through a number of changes. First, it was corrals, then a wooded park with a pond containing alligators. In 1967, the gators were moved to the zoo and this wonderful gator sculpture now stands where the gators use to swim.
We downloaded the Downtown Historic Walking Tour of El Paso. There were 25 different buildings of historic value. We soon learned as we read each description that most, if not all, were designed by Henry C. Trost of Trost and Trost. Mr. Trost became El Paso's foremost architect. He was a pioneer in the use of reinforcerd concrete and mastered every architectural style, and apparently used them all in El Paso.
The Mills Building to the right is one of Trost's projects. However the Plaza theater was designed by W. Scott Dunne. I wonder who had the bigger budget?
Our favorite stop was the Montgomery Building, a masonry building with a fake wood front, Of course, the fact that Dave's - a pawn shop - is now located in the building had nothing to do with our choice. This building, dating back to 1882, is the oldest building still standing downtown and still has the original cornice work.
As we wandered up and down the streets, we came across this mural of the old trolleys that used to run all through El Paso. If you look closely at the circle inlay, you can see the mural is made up of the faces of the people of El Paso.
After we finished the official walking tour, we headed out on our "unofficial" tour. We could hear some lively mariachi music coming from the bottom of El Paso Street, so we mosied on down to check it out. At first we thought we might have found another festival, but it was just a record store selling CDs and playing mariachi music really loud. At the end of El Paso Street is the border crossing into Mexico. The cars are lined up as far as the eye can see on the other side.
Most folks are coming over to do some shopping. Many of these actually walk across with shopping carts on wheels. We went into one store which specialized in sports apparel, especially all the soccer teams from around the world. Dave picked out a really cool lightweight shirt from Brazil. He went to check out and found the Chinese owner behind the register. Turns out that many shops that line the Mexican shopping district on El Paso Street are owned by Chinese. Makes sense because most the products were saw were made in China!
After lunch in the Plaza, we headed out of downtown. We travelled east along the river and were totally depressed by the miles and miles of border fencing, sometime three different rows of fences, each with razor wire on top. The river itself is non-existent. It is just an empty river bed. The water has been diverted into canals with flood gates to prevent flooding.
Wetlands and riverside forests once graced the banks of the Rio Grande in the El Paso region. They were the most productive natural habitats in the region, but today they are virtually gone. The Rio Bosque Wetlands Park is a 372-acre City of El Paso park that the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) manages through its Center for Environmental Resource Management. They are trying to bring back this area to its natural state. Here is a salt cedar in all its glory with pink blossoms.
A well constructed and manicured interpretive trail winds through this part of the park. However, there were no trail guides left in the box, so we did our best to figure out what we were looking at. We did meet a really cool burrowing owl. He took off before we could get a photo of him.
Here is the canal that runs along the north edge of the park. There are lots of water fowl enjoying this little oasis in the desert. We even saw one family of humans setting up their fishing rods, with their car parked in the precious shade of a large tree.
We didn't stay long, as we were scheduled to talk with Matt, Weina and William today. We enjoyed our time in El Paso, but because we've seen most of the highlights here, we will probably pick other destinations in the area to stop at next time were are in this part of Texas.
Look out Sante Fe, here we come!
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