| |
Fast facts about El Paso Texas History
- "El Paso" is a shortened version of "El Paso del Norte", and refers to the Northern river valley pass between two mountain ranges.
- The El Paso area was first claimed for Spain by Juán de Oñate in April of 1598. Some students of El Paso history consider the mass and celebratory feast that accompanied "La Toma" (the "taking", or the "claim") to be the actual first Thanksgiving held on what would one day be U.S. soil.
- For a while, there were two area towns both named "El Paso". The one in Mexico changed its name to "Ciudad Juárez" in 1888.
- The longest standing church in the area is La Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission) . Built in the 1650's, the structure is located on the south side of the river in present-day Cd. Juárez.
- The first permanent settlement in Texas is thought to be Pueblo Ysleta del Sur. The town was settled in 1680 by Tigua Indian and Spanish refugees seeking to escape the violence of the Pueblo Indian Revolt near what is present-day Albuquerque.
- First recognized by the Spanish Crown in 1751, the government of Pueblo Ysleta del Sur predates that of the United States by more than twenty years.
- Today, the pueblo is a federally recognized reservation under the authority of the Tigua Tribal government. The town surrounding the pueblo was annexed by El Paso in 1955.
- Tiguas and Spanish settlers built the Ysleta Mission--the oldest church still in use in the State of Texas.
- The Six Nations of El Paso:
- Kingdom of Spain
- Tigua (according to a 1751 land grant by the Carlos V of Spain)
- Republic of Mexico
- Republic of Texas
- Confederate States of America
- United States of America
-
Fort Bliss
was originally established in 1848--in part to enforce the agreements made under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In 1861, the base was temporarily occupied by Confederate forces, and was abandoned for a short while in 1877. Fort Bliss now stands on more than a million acres in West Texas and Southern New Mexico and is one of the primary locations for training in desert warfare.
- In 1848, the Rio Grande became the official border between the United States and Mexico. But the changing course of the river by flooding and erosion led to disputes among governments and had some citizens wondering which flag to pledge allegiance to. Treaties in 1853 and 1884, and an international commission convened in 1911 failed to clear up the matter. The dispute was not resolved until 1963 (the river now has a concrete channel dividing El Paso and Ciudad Juárez).
- On May 29, 1947, the United States bombed Mexico......on accident. A misdirected rocket fired from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico somehow made its way across the border to Juárez and gave everyone in the area a bit of a start. No one was hurt, however, and an international incident was avoided.
- For almost eighty years, alligators were a main attraction of the city's San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso. There is some debate about how the non-native species first arrived in this desert town. But it is known that they were moved to the El Paso Zoo in 1965.
Here is a link to find out more about
El Paso Texas history
.
Plaza de Los Lagartos by sculptor Luis A. Jiménez, Jr.
|
