El Paso

El Paso lies between the southern end of the Rockies and the northern terminus of Mexico's Sierra Madre, making it a major stopping point on the southern route west during the California gold rush. In 1850 the downtown area was sparsely settled, with a dirt trail leading to the Rio Grande. Eight years later there was an established roadway populated with adobe homes and businesses, and not long after that San Jacinto Plaza became the official town square. The arrival of the railroad in 1888 sealed El Paso's fate as a vital city of the west.

Many of El Paso's downtown gems, such as the historically protected Plaza Hotel (one of Conrad Hilton's first hotels), unfortunately today stand empty. Hotels during the 1950s were often full, sometimes with Hollywood stars and the wealthy heading for a cheap and easy divorce in Ciudad Juárez (often called just Juárez), across the river. Adding to the town's bravado back then were live alligators in the plaza pond. (A sculpture of writhing alligators has replaced the real reptiles, which ended their residency in the 1960s.)

Sixteenth-century Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate dubbed the entire Rio Grande Valley Paso del Rio del Norte ("the pass through the river of the north")—from which El Paso derives its name. Oñate was so grateful that the expedition of about 500 ragged colonists had reached the Rio Grande that he ordered his people to don their best clothes for a feast of thanksgiving on April 30, 1598—a celebration that preceded the arrival of the pilgrims in Massachusetts by nearly a quarter century. On that feast day, April 30, 1598, Oñate issued a formal proclamation of La Toma, claiming the land for the King of Spain.