The Hotel Cortez is a historic eleven-story building in El Paso, Texas.
History The Hotel Orndorff in El Paso was built in 1926 for Alzina Orndorff DeGroff. DeGroff purchased the Vendome Hotel at the corner of Mills and Mesa Streets in 1899. In 1900, she renamed it the Orndorff Hotel. In 1925, she demolished the hotel in 1925 to make way for a new Hotel Orndorff, that would later become the Hotel Cortez.
The Hotel Orndorff was designed by Trost & Trost. It cost $1.4 million to build. Reportedly, DeGroff put up $1 million of her own money to build the new hotel. However, she unexpectedly died just one month before its completion, The Orndorff family continued to operate the hotel until 1933 when it was purchased by Harry L. Hussmann and the Hussmann Hotel Company and renamed the Hotel Hussmann and then the Hotel Cortez in 1935.
President John F. Kennedy stayed overnight on June 5, 1963. The hotel closed in 1970 and became the El Paso Job Corps Center, by lease with the Department of Labor. This is an "individual data sheet" excerpted from Thematic Resources NRHP document "Commercial Structures of El Paso by Henry C. Trost". Includes four photos from 1979 and 1980. The structure was fully converted to an office building in 1984. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since September 24, 1980.
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