10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About El Paso TX

Check out these interesting facts about our beautiful city of El Paso, Texas.

Our city of El Paso with its desert landscapes, glorious sunsets, and majestic mountains has a very interesting past. Established in 1850, El Paso which straddles the U.S. Mexico Border, shares tons of history and culture with Ciudad Juarez and has also been influenced by its Wild West history.

Today with a population of just under 700,000, El Paso continues to thrive with a growing list of talented musicians and artists, incredible cuisine along with a strong federal and military presence continues to shine like a gem in the desert of the southwest.

Here are a few El Paso fun facts you might not know:

Nickname

Before El Paso was nicknamed the Sun City, El Paso, was known as the Six Shooter Capital. With the arrival of the railroads in the 1880s, El Paso was the destination of Wild West newcomers causing the city to become a violent and wild boomtown known as the Six Shooter Capital because of its lawlessness.

Boots

El Paso is the boot-making capital of the world. Boots are serious business around here, celebrities have been known to come in just to find a great pair of boots from any one of the dozen bootmakers in town, including Tony Lama, Justin Boots, and Rocketbuster Handmade Boots.

First Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving took place in the United States in 1598 in the town of San Elizario in El Paso County way before the Mayflower pilgrim-landing in 1620.

Border Town

El Paso has the only Border Patrol Museum in the United States.

Museums

El Paso is home to one of the only 13 Holocaust museums in the entire United States and also happens to be the only bi-lingual Holocaust museum as well.

First Hilton Hotel

Back in 1930 the hotel mogul Conrad Hilton and great grandfather to Paris Hilton opened his first high-rise hotel in El Paso. We later knew it to become the Plaza Hotel and interestingly enough 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor visited El Paso in 1950 before her wedding to Conrad “Nicki” Hilton, Jr. and stayed in the penthouse of El Paso’s Hilton (Plaza) hotel.

Billy The Kid

The only jail Billy the Kid ever broke into was the San Elizario Jail when he posed as a Texas Ranger. You can still visit that jail today in San Eli.

Oldest Street

The city’s first and oldest street is El Paso Street and it has seen the footsteps of famous historical folks such as Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, President William Howard Taft, and Pancho Villa, and was the scene of the infamous Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight in 1881.

Buffalo Soldiers

The Buffalo Soldiers memorial resides in Concordia Cemetery in El Paso and is dedicated to the black soldiers who served in the military after the Civil War.