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About El Paso
History
El Paso got its name in 1598 when Don Juan Oñate left Santa Barbara, Chihuahua, with 500 colonists to settle the Upper Rio Grande Valley into New Mexico.
Upon crossing the river, Oñate named the area El Paso Del Rio Del Norte, or The Pass of the River of the North.
This “pass” is generally recognized as the location of the ford in the river, allowing passage to the North to Santa Fe and other destinations for Oñate.
This name was shortened to El Paso Del Norte, later becoming Ciudad Juárez in 1888 in honor of Mexican President Benito Juárez, who declared it the capital of the Mexican Republic for a brief period.
Oñate’s travels ended the final portion of El Camino Real, a 1,600 mile road from Mexico City to Santa Fe.
As one people divided by a common history, residents north of the river named their community El Paso after the Treaty of Miguel Hidalgo ceded to the U.S. all land north of the Rio Grande.
The area was home to native people as long as 1,000 years ago who roamed the hills and valley along the river.
Following the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521, the area saw the introduction of Franciscan padres traveling by foot and Spanish conquistadores on horseback seeking gold and land for the Crown.
In 1659, priests founded the first Spanish-Indian settlement and mission in the region, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, still a prominent fixture in the downtown plaza of Cd. Juárez.
In 1680, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico revolted and the retreating Spanish along with a group of Tigua Indians founded new missions further South in the valley and named them Ysleta Del Sur and Nuestra Señora de la Purisima Concepción in Socorro.
Tiguas helped to settle the Ysleta mission and it was named “Ysleta Del Sur” to distinguish them from Tiguas in Isleta, New Mexico.
The Piros settled the Socorro mission.
In 1789 the Spanish established a “presidio” or fort, at San Elizario with a military garrison to defend the missions against native people hostile to the Spaniards and against colonizers wishing to settle on Spanish controlled land.
All three structures are current hallmarks of El Paso's history.
The missions were all located in present Mexico until 1929 when a surge of water changed the course of the Rio Grande River, leaving all but the original mission on the U.S. side of the river.
In 1827, Juan Maria Ponce de Leon established a hacienda in current downtown El Paso.
Following the defeat of Mexico in 1845, Ponce’s ranch was taken by the U.S. military and was named Franklin.
It was later renamed El Paso and it served as a major stop for the Butterfield Trail and others traveling West.
El Paso became the City of El Paso in 1873 and boomed after the railroads came in 1881.
This was the era of the “Old West” that saw gunfighters such as John Wesley Hardin.
It was also a refuge for Pancho Villa, a high profile rebel during the Mexican Revolution who saw control of Juárez change hands several times before it ended with the Treaty of Juárez in 1930.
Ft. Bliss, a military installation established in 1848, grew to the largest cavalry post in the U.S. at one time.
UTEP began in 1914 as the College of Mines and Metallurgy and Elephant Butte Dam opened in 1916, bringing a strong agricultural industry to New Mexico and the El Paso Valley.
Today, with a population over 700,000 people, El Paso is realizing its strength and importance as a major trade area and population center.
In addition, Juárez is no longer the 1910 community of 11,000, but an economic hub of Mexico with a population exceeding 1.4 million.
References:
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