Beginning with drawings and woodcuts depicting the days before photography, this book follows the story of life at the Pass of the North, documenting change as El Paso took shape and grew from a dirt-street frontier town into a modern city in the 1970s. Each era is fascinating, from the arrival of the conquistadores, through the coming of the railroad in the 1880s, the turn of the century with the establishment of more businesses and the move toward permanent residences, the Mexican Revolution, the war years, the rapid changes of the fifties and, finally, the sophistication of the seventies. Many of the photographs, especially those of the Mexican Revolution, are extremely rare and had not been public before the 1971 publication of El Paso in Pictures. First published by The Mangan Press/El Paso.

El Paso is a city with an international history and culture that is tied to the Rio Grande. Native Americans followed the river and traded with other groups that lived near it. In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate traveled north with a large caravan from Zacatecas, Mexico, to what became known as El Paso del Norte. Near San Elizario, Oñate claimed the area for Spain, and it became a trade center along El Camino Real, the Royal Highway, which went north all the way to the Española Valley in New Mexico.With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, the Rio Grande became the international boundary between the United States and Mexico, and El Paso became a town of westernmost Texas. Historic Photos of El Paso includes hundreds of images of this great American city, including government, businesses, schools, architecture, military history, and other subjects of historical interest, all showcased in vivid black-and-white.

Located at the far western tip of Texas, the city of El Paso is bordered on the north by New Mexico and on the south by the city of Juarez, Mexico. The area's recorded history dates back more than 400 years when Spanish missionaries gave the region its name: El Paso del Norte, or The Pass of the North. Between 1850 and 1950, El Paso's growth was influenced by a variety of people and events. The "four dead in five seconds" shootout in 1881 gave El Paso the short-lived nickname "Six-Shooter Capital" until the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, happened later that year. When the railroad arrived, El Paso was abruptly transformed from a sleepy, adobe village to a vital international crossroads. The Mexican Revolution influenced the city in the early part of the 20th century, and the 1920s saw Prohibition energize the local tourist trade with barrooms and gambling available just across the border. El Paso also became an inland Ellis Island, with thousands of immigrants entering the United States eager for a new start. This book examines the early years of El Paso's evolution. Book jacket.

Photos chiefly from the the collections of the El Paso Public Library, El Paso County Historical Society, and Library of Congress.

El Paso was a crossroads long before it was a border town, and its restaurant history represents the same intersection of foodways and culinary traditions. When the Ladies' Auxiliary for the YMCA produced El Paso's first known community cookbook in 1898, a number of its recipes appeared in English for the first time. Many of the eateries that supported that variety are now gone, but places like Jaxson's, Griggs and the Central Café changed the city's tastebuds forever. Walk the colonnade of the Hollywood Café or plop down at Bill Parks Bar-B-Q in this collection of standbys served up by the El Paso County Historical Society.

El Paso’s African American community can trace its origins back to the 16th century, when the black Moor known as Esteban roamed the southwest and, more significantly, those Africans in the party of conquistador Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande in 1598. The modern El Paso African American community began to take shape in the 1880s, as the railroad industry, military establishment, and agricultural community all had black Americans in their ranks. Black leaders and their followers established a school and founded several significant black churches. Texas’s first state branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is recorded to have been formed in El Paso; the first major court cases that challenged the all-white Democratic primary came from this city; the Texas Western College basketball team won the NCAA championship in 1966 with five starting black players; and today, the city is inhabited by black military retirees, entrepreneurs, educators, and other professionals (each with vibrant and socially conscious organizations), making it a progressive model of community development.