50 Fun Facts About El Paso

El Paso sits across the Rio Grande from which Mexican city?

Ciudad Juárez is named for Benito Juárez, the Mexican president who made the town his headquarters in 1865–66 while fighting the French intervention.

Which interstate highway runs east–west through El Paso?

Interstate 10 runs almost 880 miles across Texas, so El Paso, at its western end, is closer by road to Los Angeles than to Orange, Texas, on the Louisiana line.

Which time zone does El Paso observe?

Mountain Time: El Paso and neighbouring Hudspeth County are the only parts of Texas officially outside Central Time, so the city keeps the same clock as New Mexico rather than Dallas or Houston.

El Paso's abundant desert sun earned it which nickname?

Sun City is the nickname, and it carried over to the city's buses, which ran as Sun City Area Transit until 1987, when the system was renamed Sun Metro.

South of the border, the Rio Grande that flows past El Paso goes by which name?

Río Bravo, or Río Bravo del Norte, is the river's Mexican name; it became the international boundary at El Paso in 1848, under the treaty that ended the Mexican–American War.

Which 2006 Disney film tells the story of Texas Western's 1966 championship basketball team?

Glory Road stars Josh Lucas as the Texas Western coach, shown bucking convention by starting the best players he could find: the first all-Black lineup in an NCAA final.

Rights to which mineral, hauled from dry lake beds east of El Paso, set off a deadly feud in 1877?

Salt from lake beds about 100 miles east was the prize in the 1877 Salt War, in which a besieged company of Texas Rangers surrendered to an armed crowd of local residents.

Which cowboy boot brand grew from a shoe-repair shop that a former Army cobbler opened in El Paso?

Tony Lama mended soldiers' boots as an Army cobbler at the local post, then opened his own shop; he and one assistant made just 20 pairs of boots in their first year.

El Paso's Mexican neighbor across the Rio Grande was known by what name until 1888?

Paso del Norte, the Pass of the North, shared its name with the Texas town after 1859, which caused endless confusion until the older Mexican city was renamed in 1888.

Which Spanish explorer celebrated a Thanksgiving Mass by the Rio Grande near El Paso in 1598?

Juan de Oñate's colonising expedition held a Mass of thanksgiving beside the Rio Grande on 30 April 1598, 23 years before the Pilgrims' 1621 feast at Plymouth.

Which mission in El Paso is recognized as the oldest continuously operated parish in Texas?

Ysleta Mission was founded in 1682 for Tigua people who came south with the Spanish after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt; the Tigua still call the church San Antonio, after their patron saint.

Which colonial route linked Mexico City to Santa Fe by way of El Paso?

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the Royal Road of the Interior, was a supply line: wagon caravans hauled goods up it from Mexico City to the missions of the north.

El Paso County was established in 1850 with which town as its first county seat?

San Elizario, an old Spanish presidio town, was then the county's largest settlement; the seat moved more than once before a hotly contested election gave it to the city of El Paso in 1883.

Who was hired in 1859 to survey and lay out the street plan of downtown El Paso?

Anson Mills, a young surveyor who later became an Army general, platted the townsite in 1859 and gave it the name El Paso, replacing the settlement's earlier name, Franklin.

What arrived in 1881 and made El Paso a boomtown?

The railroads reached El Paso in 1881, and a town of 736 people at the 1880 census had more than 10,000 by 1890.

What lawless nickname did El Paso earn as a boomtown in the 1880s?

Six-shooter Capital was the name El Paso earned when saloons, gambling halls and brothels lined its streets; the city outlawed gambling and prostitution in 1905, though by other accounts both lasted until an Army crackdown in World War I.

Which Old West gunfighter was shot dead in El Paso's Acme Saloon in 1895?

John Wesley Hardin had studied law in prison and been free about eighteen months when constable John Selman shot him from behind in the Acme Saloon on 19 August 1895.

Which historic El Paso cemetery is the resting place of Buffalo Soldiers, Texas Rangers and Old West gunfighters?

Concordia dates from 1856 and holds more than 60,000 graves; Mexico's deposed president Victoriano Huerta was first buried here before his remains were moved.

Which US and Mexican presidents met in El Paso in 1909, the first such summit?

William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz met on 16 October 1909; after the talks in El Paso, Taft crossed the river for a banquet at the Mexican customhouse, the first time a sitting US president had entered Mexico.

Which US Army post headquartered in El Paso is home to the 1st Armored Division?

Fort Bliss, headquartered in El Paso, became home to the 1st Armored Division in 2011, when the division moved back from Germany after 40 years there.

Which rocket pioneer was housed at El Paso's Army post from 1945 with his team of engineers?

Wernher von Braun and about 125 German engineers were brought to the post under Project Paperclip; they worked on Army rockets there until moving to Huntsville, Alabama, in 1950.

Which general was stationed at El Paso's Army post in 1914 and later led the expedition against Pancho Villa?

John J. Pershing took command at the post in 1914 and led the 1916 Punitive Expedition into Mexico after Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico, that March.

Which El Paso border dispute, caused by the shifting Rio Grande, did a 1963 treaty settle?

The Chamizal dispute began when the river moved south in the 1860s, leaving Mexican farmland on the American side; the settlement returned land to Mexico and sent the Rio Grande down a new concrete channel.

Under what name was the University of Texas at El Paso founded in 1913?

State School of Mines and Metallurgy was the name in the 1913 law that created it; classes began in 1914, and the mining roots survive in the Miners team name.

UTEP's campus buildings copy the fortress-monastery style of which Himalayan region?

Bhutan's style was proposed by Kathleen Worrell, wife of the school's first dean, when the campus was rebuilt on a new site after a 1916 fire destroyed the main building.

In 1966, Texas Western's all-Black starting five beat which team for the NCAA basketball title?

Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp, fielded an all-white team and lost 72–65; in the years that followed, major college programs stepped up their recruiting of Black players.

Who coached the 1966 Texas Western champions?

Don Haskins, nicknamed 'the Bear', said he never set out to make a statement: he simply wanted his five best players on the floor so he could win the game.

Which is the only college bowl game older than El Paso's Sun Bowl?

Only the Rose Bowl is older: the Sun Bowl began on New Year's Day 1935 as a game between Texas high school teams and switched to college sides a year later.

Which cereal's mascot named the Sun Bowl from 2019?

Frosted Flakes put Tony the Tiger in the game's title; an earlier sponsor went further, and for five seasons from 1989 the game was the John Hancock Bowl, with no 'Sun' in its name at all.

El Paso's Triple-A baseball team is the Chihuahuas, an affiliate of which MLB club?

The San Diego Padres' Triple-A club moved from Tucson to El Paso in 2014, playing at Southwest University Park, built where the old city hall stood.

What is the name of El Paso's USL Championship soccer club, which debuted in 2019?

Locomotive FC began USL Championship play in 2019 at Southwest University Park, sharing the downtown ballpark with the Chihuahuas because one group, MountainStar Sports, runs both clubs.

The now-closed Wyler Aerial Tramway climbed to which Franklin Mountains summit?

Ranger Peak, at 5,632 feet, got its tramway in 1959 so a radio station could build a transmitter there; the cars hauled concrete and equipment before any sightseer rode them.

El Paso's Star on the Mountain first shone for which holiday?

Christmas 1940 was the occasion: El Paso Electric's first star was only 50 feet wide, and the star became a nightly, year-round fixture only in 1993.

El Paso's mountainside star shone nightly from 1979 for which captive Americans?

The Iran hostages were held for 444 days, and the star stayed lit every night until they were freed in January 1981; it burned nightly again during the Gulf War, from late 1990 to August 1991.

Which future Supreme Court justice was born in El Paso in 1930?

Sandra Day O'Connor was born in El Paso but raised on her family's remote Arizona cattle ranch, the subject of her memoir Lazy B; she went to school in El Paso while living with her grandmother.

Hueco Tanks, east of El Paso, is named for what?

Hueco is Spanish for hollow, and the site's natural rock basins that trap rainwater drew people for thousands of years, leaving pictographs that include hundreds of painted masks.

Chico's Tacos, an El Paso institution since 1953, is famous for rolled tacos served in what?

Soupy tomato sauce, under shredded cheese, is what Chico's Tacos drowns its rolled tacos in; boxing promoter Joe Mora founded it in 1953, and his family has run the stands since his death in 1992.

Downtown El Paso's San Jacinto Plaza is nicknamed after which animals that once lived in its pond?

Alligators lived in the plaza's pond for decades, earning it the name La Plaza de los Lagartos; after they were moved to the zoo, local artist Luis Jiménez's fiberglass sculpture Los Lagartos took their place.

El Paso's Plaza Theatre opened in 1930 with a pipe organ built by which company?

Wurlitzer built the Plaza's organ, which was sold to a Dallas buyer in the early 1970s; brought back to El Paso in 1998, it spent some years in a shopping mall before returning to the restored theatre in 2006.

Which star of Singin' in the Rain was born in El Paso in 1932?

Debbie Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso; her family moved to California in the late 1930s, and a beauty contest she entered at 16 led to her first studio contract.

Which country singer wrote and recorded the 1959 ballad "El Paso", set in Rosa's Cantina?

Marty Robbins's ballad ran about four and a half minutes, far longer than the singles radio usually played, yet disc jockeys kept it in heavy rotation and it topped both the country and pop charts as 1960 began.

Which television creator was born in El Paso in 1921?

Gene Roddenberry was born in El Paso on 19 August 1921 and raised in Los Angeles, where his father was a police officer; he served in the LAPD himself before creating Star Trek in 1966.

Which singer from El Paso broke through with the 2016 single 'Location'?

Khalid moved to El Paso for his senior year at Americas High School when his mother's Army career took her there, and he put out 'Location' as graduation neared; American Teen followed in 2017.

Which El Paso politician served on the city council from 2005 to 2011 before running for Senate against Ted Cruz?

Beto O'Rourke left the council in 2011 and the next year unseated eight-term congressman Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary; he lost the 2018 Senate race by 2.6 points.

Which nickname belongs to El Paso's 1st Armored Division?

Old Ironsides was formed at Fort Knox in July 1940, when the Army pulled cavalry units together into a tank division as it mechanized for World War II; the frigate USS Constitution bears the same nickname.

Which Texas city overtook El Paso in population during the 2000s?

Fort Worth jumped from 534,694 residents to 741,206 between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, while El Paso grew only from 563,662 to 649,121 and slipped a place among Texas cities.

Which national park, home to Texas's highest peak, lies about 110 miles east of El Paso?

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, about 110 miles east of El Paso, contains Guadalupe Peak, at 8,751 feet the highest point in Texas; it was established as a national park in 1972.

The Magoffin Home, built in 1875, is a landmark example of which architectural style?

Territorial style pairs thick adobe walls with Greek Revival trim; Joseph Magoffin, later mayor of El Paso, built the house in 1875 after winning back land confiscated from his father during the Civil War.

Which former Air Force bomber base beside El Paso's airport is now an Army airfield?

Biggs was named for James Biggs, an El Paso pilot killed in France in 1918; the Air Force flew bombers from it until 1966, and the Army has since taken over the field.

The Butterfield Overland Mail, which stopped at El Paso from 1858, ran stagecoaches between which two cities?

St. Louis and San Francisco lay about 2,800 miles apart by this route, with a second eastern branch from Memphis; the service lasted only until March 1861, when the approaching Civil War moved the mail north out of Texas.