Founded as El Paso del Norte (at what is now Ciudad Juárez, Mexico) by Spanish Franciscan friars at an important mountain pass, the area became a small agricultural producer though most settlement was south of the river where modern Mexico lies. The city was considered part of New Mexico under Spanish Conquerors and was tied economically to Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Chihuahuan mining districts of San Felipe El Real and San José del Parral.
The Texas Revolution when Texas revolted from Mexico, which itself had recently become independent from Spain, did not involve paseños as the region was a part of Chihuahua. However, after Texas' annexation by the United States the boundary of the state was claimed to include what would become this important trading center.
As railroads were built through the area it boomed as a commercial center. The World Wars and the Texas Oil Boom helped develop the city further. As international trade has become increasingly important in the U.S., and Juárez has grown as a manufacturing center, El Paso's economic importance has continued to expand.
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. 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.Kevin Mulvihill (September 19, 2008), "On Rock Walls, Painted Prayers to Rain Gods", New York Times, pp. D1, D7. Mulvihill notes that the images are notable because they are painted with hematite, rather than pecked into the rock, as are the petroglyphs to be found in New Mexico.
The Jumano, Suma and Manso people were identified as present by the earliest Spanish explorers. The Jumano people were hunter gatherers who typically hunted Bison and frequently traveled long distances between modern day El Paso and New Mexico. The Mansos lived from immediate area of El Paso to Las Cruces. The Sumas lived along the Rio Grande southeast of El Paso, as well as in portions of northern Mexico. Both the Mansos and Suma lived in small communities in homes constructed of straw, brush and poles. Neither groups practiced horticulture, instead relying on native plants and animals for food including rabbit, rats, fish, mesquite beans, prickly pear, agave and yucca.
Arrival of Spaniards
Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate, born in present-day Zacatecas, Mexico, was the first explorer to arrive at the Rio Grande near El Paso (near the current small town of San Elizario, which is about downstream of El Paso), where he ordered his expedition party to rest and where the official act of possession, La Toma, was executed and celebrated, 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 Fray García de San Francisco. Agriculture flourished thanks to the complex irrigation system built by the Spanish and Indians, including a massive earthen dam. 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, like the Bracito Grant. 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, although the largest civilian center was in the Real de San Lorenzo. 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. The eighteenth century witnessed the area's rapid growth, giving the district a population of over 5,000. These included Spaniards, criollos, mestizos, and indigenous spread along the river from El Paso to San Lorenzo, Senecú, Ysleta, and El Rancho de los Tiburcios. The military post assigned to the settlement's defense was moved over the eighteenth century to various sites, including San José, San Elizario, and El Carrizal.
Historical records indicated that the first permanent agricultural enterprise north of the Río Grande located in present-day El Paso was the Ponce de León Ranch, on land granted in 1825. Earlier efforts—such as the "lost mission" of Nuestra Señora de las Caldas and El Rancho de los Tiburcios—had been discouraged through Indian raids and floods.
El Paso remained largely undeveloped during most of the period of Spanish control. Instead, settlement was centered on El Paso del Norte (present day Ciudad Juárez) on the south bank of the Rio Grande. However, 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, frequent Indian raids and warfare overwhelmed any attempts. The Apache Wars and subsequent Comanche Wars left northern Mexico, then including present-day New Mexico, Texas, and Coahuila, in a state of perpetual instability. Consequently, present-day Juárez remained the northernmost villa with the Río Bravo del Norte, and Apache attacks dissuading settlement and development north. The water of the river, the sand dunes (médanos) to the south, and the fortifications at Paso del Norte and El Real de San Lorenzo provided a natural defense against further raids; however, in some decades, several-thousand-strong Apache armies made raids deep into Mexico, slaughtering the male population and enslaving women and children. As a result, the Rio Grande proved to be a boundary line of actual Hispanic presence.
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. American spies, traders and fur trappers visited the area since 1804 (Spanish documents curiously described these interlopers as "españoles de Inglaterra" meaning "Spaniards from England") and some intermarried with the area's Hispanic elite. Among these were Kentucky native Hugh Stephenson, who married doña Juana María de Azcárate. Notable travelers included Zebulon Pike. American settler families only arrived in significant numbers, after the Mexican–American War in 1849.El Paso, A Borderlands History, by W.H. Timmons, pp. 74, 75
Although there was no combat 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.El Paso, A Borderlands History, by W. H. Timmons, pp. 106
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.Chihuahua: Una Historia Compartida 1824–1821, by Guadalupe Villa and Graziella Altamirano, pp. 65–73
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. A number of loyal Mexican families abandoned New Mexico and were resettled to the region south of El Paso's lower valley settlements, where, under the leadership of Guadalupe Miranda—the last secretary of Mexico's New Mexican government—sought to provide land and funds to displaced families. Mexican Catholic clergy also were active in these communities, with some of the most notable including Father Antonio Borrajo.
The present Texas-New Mexico boundary, placing El Paso on the Texas side, was drawn in the Compromise of 1850. This compromise transferred much of Texas' northwestern lands, which the state government did not effectively control, to the federal government, where they became parts of modern-day states including New Mexico. El Paso, however, despite geographic, historic, and economic connections to New Mexico, was successfully retained by Texas in the Compromise of 1850, largely because it had recently organized local residents into a county government and was thus able to claim El Paso as integral Texas territory. (A similar plan to incorporate Santa Fe into a Texas county failed, and Santa Fe was therefore removed from Texas and placed in New Mexico.)El Paso, A Borderlands History, by W.H. Timmons, pp. 117-125
A number of important developments during the 1850s shaped the character of the area north of the river. The Stephenson-Azcárate family acquired a tract from the Ponce de León grant in the vicinity of today's I-10 "Spaghetti Bowl" interchange. It was called "El Rancho de la Concordia" or "Stephensonville" after Hugh Stephenson's childhood home in Concordia, Missouri. The Archbishop of Durango later gave permission for the blessing of a private chapel there, San José de la Concordia, whose ruins persisted until the 1930s; its camposanto or burial grounds were the origins of Concordia Cemetery. Further west, 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. Following the establishment of the San Antonio-El Paso Road, a military post called The Post opposite El Paso (meaning opposite El Paso del Norte, across the Rio Grande) was established in 1854. That same year San Antonio-El Paso Mail was established, passing through Franklin in 1854. In 1857, the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line, the first mail coach route from the East to California passed through Franklin, soon followed by the Butterfield Overland Mail 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). Ben Dowell, a Mexican–American War veteran and former Confederate Captain, would be elected as the first mayor.
The Confederate States of America During the U.S. Civil War, Texas, along with most other southern slave states, declared that they had seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy. Confederate forces controlled Fort Bliss in 1861 until the city's occupation by the Union California Column in 1862. It was then headquarters for the 5th Regiment California Volunteer Infantry until December 1864. After the war concluded, the town's population began to grow.
County seat at Tigua land in Ysleta