Towns & Communities
Anthony
Anthony is in El Paso County on the border of Texas and New Mexico and is located on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
Railway and State Highway 20 sixteen miles northwest of downtown El Paso. It was reportedly named by a Mexican-American
woman who built a chapel to St. Anthony of Padua sometime before 1884. A post office was established on the El Paso
County side in March of that year but was never in operation. The Texas community later became known as La Tuna, after
the Federal Correctional Institution located there, at which a post office was open from 1932 to 1965. In the early
1940s the population was estimated at only twenty, but ten years later, after the community incorporated as Anthony, the
population estimate had grown to 1,200. It declined to 1,082 in the early 1960s, then grew to 2,154 in the early 1970s,
2,640 in the early 1980s, and 3,328 in 1990. A post office was established in Anthony in 1981. In 1988 the Anthony
Chamber of Commerce named the town the Leap Year Capital of the World, and the Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club, open
to anyone born on February 29. Leap Year Birthday Club had more than 100 members by 1992.
Canutillo
Canutillo is an incorporated community on the east bank of the Rio Grande and on U.S. Highways 80 and 85 about twelve
miles northwest of downtown El Paso in northwestern El Paso County. The community also was on the Atchison, Topeka and
Santa e Railway. The story of the town begins in June 1823, when the Canutillo land grant was assigned to Juan Maria
Ponce De Leonqv and twenty-nine other citizens of El Paso del Norte (what is now Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico). A small
agricultural settlement was established in 1824, but Apache raiders forced residents to abandon it in 1833. The site
remained vacant until after the arrival of Anglo-American settlers in the mid-1800s. The Canutillo ranch became a
principal source of income for James Wiley Magoffin but in 1855 Jose Sanchez and others established their ownership as
descendants of the original grantees. The state of Texas recognized their claim in 1858, and the land grant was surveyed
by Anson Mills two years later. In 1874 a court order divided ownership of the grant among Joseph Magoffin, Josiah F.
Crosby, William W. Mills Anson Mills, John S. Watts, and Sanchez. The Canutillo Townsite and Land Company was chartered
in 1909, and a post office was established there two years later. In 1914 Canutillo was identified as a rural post
office and had four general stores to serve the surrounding population. The community's estimated population was 300 in
1925. By the mid-1950s its estimated population was 1,326, and by the early 1990s it was 4,442.
Clint
Clint, also known as Collinsburgh, is about five miles east of Socorro, Texas on I-10. and is on the Southern Pacific
Railroad at the inter-section of State Highway 20 and Farm Road 1110, sixteen miles southeast of downtown El Paso in
southern El Paso County. The story of the town, which was named for early settler Mary Clinton Collins, began when the
San Elizario Corporation sold the townsite to J. A. Cole, who sold it to Thomas M.Collins in 1883. For several years
after the establishment of the Clint post office in 1886, the settlement was identified as the San Elizario station on
the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. In 1890 the estimated population of Clint was 100, and the town had a
general store, a fruit grower, and a hotel. Clint soon developed into an agricultural center. By 1896 the estimated
population had increased to 150, including nine fruit growers and four alfalfa growers. The townsite was set up in 1909.
By 1914 the estimated population of 400 supported three churches, two banks, a newspaper, and a tomato cannery. An
estimated 600 residents lived at Clint in the late 1920s, but the number to 1,035 by 1990.
Fabens
Fabens is located on the Southern Pacific Railroad and State Highway 20 a mile southwest of Interstate Highway 10 and
twenty-five miles southeast of downtown El Paso in southeastern El Paso County. The history of the town dates from the
late nineteenth century, though in 1665 a mission branch known as San Francisco de los Sumas was established just
southeast of the future site of Fabens, and a stagecoach station called San Felipe was in operation about three miles
northeast of the site before 1870. In the 1870s Teodoro and Epitacia Álvarez owned a small farm on the actual
site of Fabens, which was known as the Mezquital. In 1887 the townsite was sold to E. S. Newman by Sabas Grijalva and
Diego Loya. The first permanent settler in what is now Fabens was Eugenio Pérez, who came from San Elizario
around 1900. He owned a small farm and opened a small store shortly thereafter, when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San
Antonio Railway built through the area and established a water-pumping station. In 1906 this store became the first
Fabens post office. The town was named for George Fabens, an officer with the Southern Pacific. In 1910 Fabens had a few
section houses and two stores, and in 1914 the estimated population was 100 It was 5,599 in 1990.
San Elizario
Don Juan de Onate was a son of a noble Spanish family and his wife was the grand-daughter of Cortez and great-grand-
daughter of Moctezuma who was the governor of Zacatecas, Mexico. In January 1598, Onate, on commission from the King of
Spain, took 400 men [130 brought their families] from Santa Barbara, Mexico. The four-mile procession consisted of 83
wooden wheeled wagons and carts and seven to eight thousand horses, oxen, sheep, goats, and cattle. The journey took
four months during which they were many times forced to live on roots and berries, and drink water from castus and other
plants. They arrived on the banks of the Rio Grande on April 20, 1598. They saw a beautiful river with fish, ducks and
geese where they spent ten days resting under giant cottonwood trees and swam, hunted and fished. On April 30, 1598
Onate ordered everyone to prepare a feast of Thanksgiving with the Manso Indians. They feasted on ducks, fish, geese,
and beef cooked over an open fire. Then Ornate claimed the land for the King of Spain. The next day leaving some of the
families to settle San Elizario, Ornate traveled four days more to arrive at the Rio Grande crossing, near downtown El
Paso. They reached Santa Fe, New Mexico four months later. In 1850 San Elizario had a population of 1200 people to El
Paso's 200. It had the first flourmill, first courthouse, first school, first irrigation system still in use today and
the first open heart surgery performed by a Spanish Explorer when he removed an arrow from the heart of an Indian. War
broke out between the US and Mexico in 1846. At the end of the Mexican War in 1848 San Elizario became part of the
United States and was made the county seat of El Paso County until in 1873 it was moved to Ysleta. Has a population of
4,3854,385.
Socorro
SOCORRO, TEXAS, located on the Southern Pacific Railroad and State Highway 20 about ten miles southeast of downtown El
Paso, began in 1680, when Governor Antonio de Otermín and Father Francisco de Ayeta led Spanish and Piro Indian
refugees fleeing the New Mexican Pueblo Indian Revolt to the El Paso area. In 1682 the Spanish established Nuestra
Señora de la Limpia Concepción del Socorro Mission. The first permanent mission, built in 1691, was swept
away by flood in 1744, and a second church was built. It was washed away in 1829, when the Rio Grande cut a new channel
south of the old one, thus placing Socorro, Ysleta, and San Elizario on La Isla. The main part of the present Socorro
mission was completed in 1843. By that time the town of Socorro had developed around the mission and had a population of
1,100. The town was a part of Mexico from 1821 to 1848, when it became a part of the Texas. For the rest of the
nineteenth century Socorro remained a small farming community. Locally constructed acequias supplied water for
agricultural crops, which included vineyards, fruit trees, and cereal grains. The town, together with other Rio Grande
communities, played an active role in county politics until 1881, when the railroads arrived and shifted the political
power structure to El Paso. Population was 22,995 in 1990. Socorro has disincorporated and reincorporated several times.
In 1985 the town blocked El Paso's plan to annex the town and voted by a margin of 263 votes to remain a separate
corporation. Since then, Socorro has adopted ordinances and codes to halt uncontrolled growth and has instituted a
historic landmark commission to encourage historic preservation.
Ysleta
YSLETA, TEXAS. Ysleta, now part of the city of El Paso, is perhaps the oldest town in Texas. It was one of several
agricultural communities started on the Rio Grande by Spaniards and Indians after the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico in
1680. The Tigua Indians, who were brought from their pueblo at Isleta, New Mexico, in 1680-82, have occupied the area
continuously since. The new Ysleta del Sur ("little island of the south") was located a league and a half east of
Guadalupe Mission at the site of present Ciudad Juárez. The first Mass was celebrated near Ysleta on October 12,
1680. By 1691 a temporary church was replaced by an adobe building that was later washed away by a flood in 1740,
rebuilt four years later on higher ground. The roof and bell tower were damaged by fire in 1907. The mission's name has
been changed several times, recently to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Between 1829 and 1831 the Rio Grande cut a new
channel, which placed Ysleta on an island formed by the old and new channels. When the deepest channel became the
international boundary in 1848, Ysleta became part of the United States. The population of Ysleta showed steady growth
numbered 560 (429 Indians and 131 others) in 1760, and 8,550 in 1960. Henry L. Dexter became the town's first mayor in
1859. This city government did not survive nor did one that operated in the early 1870s. An election in 1880 approved
incorporation, and in 1889 the town council declared Ysleta a city. After a stormy period of squabbles over water
supply, land grants, limited resources, the town government dissolved in 1895. In 1873 Ysleta replaced San Elizario as
the El Paso county seat. The coming of the railroads in 1881 changed the population center of the county, and made El
Paso the county seat. A bridge was built across the Rio Grande in 1929 linking Ysleta with Zaragosa, Mexico. In 1955 El
Paso annexed Ysleta, although residents of the smaller town had voted against the move. The annexation was upheld by the
United States Supreme Court. Ysleta Independent School District was allowed to retain its identity. The Tiguas, who
helped the United States military as scouts during the Indian wars, were recognized as a tribe by the state of Texas in
1967 and by the United States Congress in 1968. They have established a housing area and various business enterprises on
their reservation in the oldest part of Ysleta.
Isla
When Mexico became independent in 1821 a chain of six towns in the El Paso area situated from three to five miles apart
stretched along the southern bank of the Rio Grande. In the early 1830s the capricious river formed a new channel south
of the old one, thus placing three of them-Ysleta, Socorro, and San Elizario-on an island some twenty miles in length
and two to four miles in width. For the remainder of the Mexican period this area was called La Isla, "the Island." The
Rio Grande continued to flow primarily through its new channel, and by 1848, when the river became the boundary between
the United States and Mexico, water had ceased to flow in the Río Viejo, or old riverbed. A flourishing
agriculture existed on the Island that featured a fertile soil mixed with a sandy loam and irrigated by a network of
acequias, or irrigation canals. The principal products were corn, wheat, fruits, and vegetables. The quality and flavor
of the grapes, wine, and brandy produced by the vineyards ranked with the best to be found in the viceroyalty of Spain,
according to almost every official who visited the area. Most of the land, haciendas, ranches, and farms-with the
exception of the ejidos, the communal holdings of the mission Indians, was owned by the wealthy Paseños of El
Paso del Norte (Ciudad Juárez) across the river, the largest town and political capital of the area.
Supplementing the Island's agricultural base was the Chihuahua trade along the historic Old San Antonio Road,qv a
natural extension of the Santa Fe trade with Missouri that began a decade earlier. sleta and Socorro were established as
missions by refugees of the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico in 1680-Ysleta for the Tiguas and Socorro for the Piros. Both
missions were swept away by the flooding river in the early 1830s, but they were at length replaced by the present
structures-Socorro in 1843 and Ysleta in 1851. San Elizario, a presidio that was moved upriver to the El Paso area in
1879, became the nucleus of a town. According to a census of 1841 the total population of the three Island settlements
was 2,850. Socorro was the largest with 1,101, San Elizario was second with 1,018, and Ysleta had 731 residents. Each
town was governed by an alcaldeqv appointed by the ayuntamientoqv of El Paso del Norte, which was controlled by the
landowning and mercantile aristocracy. Most heads of families on La Isla were farm workers or servants. Indians were
dependents, and poverty was widespread. The two-room adobeqv structure was the general pattern for all. During the
Mexican Warqv Col. Alexander Doniphan's force brought the El Paso area under United States control. The Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgoqv of February 2, 1848, which officially ended the war, provided that the new international boundary
was to be "the Rio Grande . . . following the deepest channel . . . to the point where it strikes the southern boundary
of New Mexico." American officials declared theIsland to be United States territory, and in November 1848 Col. John M.
Washington, military governor of New Mexico, appointed T. Frank White president and directed him to extend his
jurisdiction over all of the territory east of the river that had formerly been a part of Chihuahua. In February 1849
Mexican officials reported that an armed force of the United States had occupied Ysleta, Socorro, and San Elizario and
had taken possession of all the lands, including ejidos. Mexican protests proved futile. Meanwhile, by mid-1849 the
discovery of gold in California had brought into the El Paso area hordes of immigrants, many of whom decided to remain.
By late 1849 five settlements had been established by Anglo-Americans-Frontera, Hart's Mill, Coon's Ranch,
Magoffinsville, and Stephenson's Ranch. These five, together with the three Mexican settlements on the Island, indicated
that a bilingual, bicultural complex was taking shape at the Pass of the North. That the Mexican town of San Elizario
should become El Paso County's first county seat is significant.
Magoffinsville
Magoffinsville was established by James Wiley Magoffin in 1849 about a half mile north of the Rio Grande on a site
within what is now El Paso, Texas, in El Paso County. Magoffinsville was known as the American El Paso in contrast to
the Mexican city across the Rio Grande, El Paso del Norte, now Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Magoffinsville consisted of
a group of adobe buildings around an open square and was watered by an acequia that ran from the river to the square.
Magoffin resided in a large, elegant house, in which he lavishly entertained army officers and government officials.
John R. Bartlett was among Magoffin's guests, and predicted that Magoffinsville would remain the center of Anglo-
American settlement in the El Paso area.<P> A post office operated at Magoffinsville in 1852 and 1853. In January
1854 an army post was established there, with four companies of the Eighth Infantry under Maj. Edmund B. Alexander
quartered in buildings rented from Magoffin. In March 1854 the post was officially designated Fort Bliss. Most of the
buildings at Magoffinsville, including the fort, were destroyed or severely damaged by a Rio Grande flood in 1868, the
year Magoffin died and by 1870 it was described as "only an old dilapidated ranch." The site was incorporated into El
Paso in 1873. In 1875 Joseph Magoffin James's son, built a home a short distance west of the site of Magoffinsville, on
property that had belonged to his father.
San Lorenzo
San Lorenzo was located in what is now southeastern El Paso, in southwestern El Paso County. Its origins date to
September 1680, when Spanish and Indian refugees fleeing the New Mexico Pueblo Revolt settled in the El Paso area. By
October 9, 1680, they had established a camp at San Lorenzo, where Governor Antonio de Otermín established his
residence. In the early eighteenth century San Lorenzo developed into a prosperous agricultural community, and by 1750
the population consisted of 150 Suma Indians and a like number of Spanish. In February 1751 the mission lands that had
been in the hands of the Franciscans were assigned to the Indians, but by 1754 the Sumas had revolted against Spanish
authority. In 1760 the population of San Lorenzo consisted of 192 Spanish and only fifty-eight Indians. The community
still existed in the 1860s but was no longer shown on maps of the 1940s, having been superseded by the community of
Ascarate, which was later absorbed by the city of El Paso.
Smeltertown
Smeltertown is an industrial area on Interstate Highway 10, U. S. Highway 80, the Southern Pacific and the Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fe railroads, and the east bank of the Rio Grande, just west of downtown El Paso in western El Paso
County. The community came into being with the construction in 1887 of the Kansas City Consolidated Smelting and
Refining Company (called ASARCO) copper and lead smelter, after which it was named. In the 1880s the Mexican employees
of the smelter began building houses west of the smelter, beside the Rio Grande. San Rosalía Church, named after
the Chihuahua town from which most of the first parishioners came, was built in 1891, and E. B. Jones School was
established later. The church burned in 1946 and was replaced by the San José de Cristo Rey Church. In 1938 the
population of Smeltertown was estimated at 2,500; a post office was established the following year and closed four years
later. Smeltertown included a cluster of small adobe dwellings with dirt floors and windows without glass. In 1970, when
the population of the community was approximately 500, the city of El Paso filed a $1 million suit against ASARCO, later
joined by the state of Texas, charging the company with violations of the Texas Clean Air Act. In December 1971 the El
Paso City and County Health Department found in early 1972 tests found that seventy-two Smeltertown residents, including
thirty-five children who had to be hospitalized, were suffering from lead poisoning. The city sought to evacuate
Smeltertown but many residents resisted. A number of the residents also did not want to give up their homes, many of
which had been in the same family for several generations. A 1975 study found levels of "undue lead absorption" in 43
percent of those living within one mile of the smelter. In May 1975 an injunction ordered ASARCO to modernize and make
improve-ments. Against their wishes the residents were forced to move; their former homes were razed, leaving only the
abandoned school and church buildingsand cemetery to mark the site of El Paso's first major industrial community.
Cielo Vista
Cielo Vista was a very large housing development on the right side of Montana Street as you headed east past the city
airport on the way out of town. At the southern end of the many winding streets was Burges High School. I went to school
there as did all of the Air Force brats . (The Army brats mostly went to Austin High). This school was brand new in 1955
and I assume was built for the children that lived there. It contained grades 7-12 The school was named after an Air
Force pilot that crashed his plane rather than hit cielo vista. As we rode our school busses to Burges.. we traveled
down Airport Road. Ft. Bliss and it's Nike missile batteries on the right and the city airport runways on the left. I
always saw a tall yucca plant near the airport fence and since it was about five feet tall. I used to imagine that it
was probably there at the turn of the century. My hang outs were the Red Rooster bowling lanes and drive restaurant at
intersection of Dyer and Montana streets and the double screen Bordertown Drive-in movie on Montana Street, of course ..
can't forget Ashley's Hanging Garden restaurant. I revisited El Paso in 1992. Most all I remember, was gone, including
the yucca. The schools and houses are mostly still there though. [Information from Paul Cowan Farmville, North
Carolina] Addition: The part about the Air Force pilot crashing his plane to avoid Cielo Vista is true but Burges High
School was not named after the pilot it was named after William H. Burges, an El Paso lawyer and civic leader.
[Information from William Blakeney.]
Areo Vista
Aero Vista was a housing area north of the city airport. It housed the Air Force personel, and their dependents. The
houses were fairly new and I assume were built when the Air Force took over the field from the Army. The officer
families lived on the east side of the development and the enlisted men's families on the west side. Ben Milem
elementary school was located at the southern edge of the housing. This housing was not on the base proper at that time
and was unfenced and available for anyone to enter. It remained mostly unchanged until I left in Nov. of 1960.
[Information from Paul Cowan Farmville, North Carolina]
Vinton
Vinton, Tx River fifteen miles northwest of downtown El Paso in northwestern El Paso County. The town, which was named
for J. C. Vinton, a surveyor for the Southern Pacific, was most likely established when the railroad built through the
area in the early 1880s. A post office opened there in 1892 {From: Texas Handbook of Texas Online]
Collinburgh
Name was changed to Clint
La Tuna
First named Anthony, changed to La Tuna, then officially named Anthony again.
Clint
Was referred to as San Elizario Station when the railroad came, although its name was Clint.
There is no more information on these three towns
