On the Mexican Border (1917)

British Pathe just downloaded their collection of historical videos onto YouTube and we've been featuring a few from Texas' past.  Today a video, attributed to "possibly Arizona, New Mexico or Texas," and we thing the terrain and vegetation looks like our own part of the Chihuahuan Desert.

There are many sites in our region with Mexican Revolution history...the revolution was a factor in our region at the time this film clip was produced.  One notable place, still easy to visit and envision the history is Big Bend National Park's Castolon Historic District.  Click here and here to read about this place...and make plans to visit!

 

Marfa Burrito and Pancho Villa

There's a little place to get great $5 burritos on South San Antonio Street (Hwy 67) heading towards Shafter.  Open for breakfast and lunch, there's more than just terrific Mexican food there.  The walls are filled with handmade posters with greetings from film crews and musicians who've blown through town.  There are also clippings and photos of Pancho Villa and his family...for Marfa's history is very much shaped by Villa and the exodus of refugees fleeing Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.

Consider this photograph from the collection of the Marfa Public Library in University of North Texas Libraries' Portal to Texas History of Mexican refugees fleeing Villa in 1914.


[Mexican refugees fleeing from Pancho Villa], Photograph, n.d.; digital image, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth39634/ : accessed September 27, 2012), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Marfa Public Library, Marfa, Texas.

From the Texas State Historical Association's online entry for Presidio County:

"The growth of Presidio County's population in the 1910s reflected the impact of the Mexican Revolution on border life. Refugees migrated to the county from Chihuahua as the fighting moved into northern Mexico. The United States Army established several posts in the county to watch for border incursions. Marfa became the headquarters for the Big Bend Military District, and in 1917 the Army established Camp Marfa, later called Fort D. A. Russell, at Marfa to protect the border. Cavalry posts were established at Shafter, Candelaria, Redford, Presidio, Indio, Ruidosa, and Camp Holland. Raids by Mexican bandits and paramilitary forces invited fierce and sometimes excessive retaliation by the United States military and by the Texas Rangers^qv. Incidents like the Brite Ranch Raid, the Neville Ranch Raid, and the Porvenir Massacre spread insecurity and racial hatred throughout the county and the border region."

So while you wait for a huge, wonderful lunch or breakfast, take the time to get a local's spin on that heritage from Marfa Burrito's walls!

Bonus:  Special thanks to Stonewear Designs for letting us try some of their fall line...here our Texas Mountain Trail Executive Director is wearing the ready-for-any-adventure Liberty Skort!

12 Days of Christmas: Cinco Puntos Press

One of our favorite books on the Mexican Revolution; a moving book.  We use it as a reference for our exploration of El Paso. 

This one is also a favorite of ours...the photographs are very moving.

There's a youngster on our list who will love this one!

 

 

We're big readers, we admit it.  And we love reading about the history and culture of our region...and for that, there's a great El Paso publisher that offers a terrific selection of books, Cinco Puntos Press.  For more thank 25 years, they've consistently published volumes of quality with a focus on our culture.  Want to learn a little bit about them?  Click here.

And yes, you can order online!  Visit their website, here.

Interested in books in Spanish?  Their bilingual catalog is here.
Interested in books for young people?  Their YA catalog is here.

Click on these links to learn more about the books above!
MAXIMILIAN & THE MYSTERY OF THE GUARDIAN ANGEL, A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller
LAS SOLDADERAS, Women of the Mexican Revolution
RINGSIDE SEAT TO A REVOLUTION, An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez: 1893-1923

 

The Stained Glass Dome by Louis Comfort Tiffany

 

One of the many (nearly) hidden charms of El Paso is in the heart of downtown....the stained glass dome by Tiffany at the Camino Real Hotel, across from the Museum of Art.  Originally, the Paso del Norte Hotel, the building was designed by renowned El Paso architect Henry Trost.  It cost about $1.5 million to construct and opened on Nov. 24, 1912.  The Tiffany dome is 25 feet wide and two stories above the floor.  It is now the central meeting point at the hotel's bar.

During the revolution Pancho Villa, New York radical journalist John Reed, Gen. Alvaro Obregón and General John Pershing either stayed at or attended conferences here. In 1914, former Chihuahuan Gov. Luis Terrazas and his family, along with their 27 servants, rented the entire top floor. 

You can learn more about the hotel and its role in the Mexican Revolution here, where the hotel appears on a wonderful historical walking tour.  We like the audio features about each of the walking tour's stops!  

Behind these doors, the sunlight of our past

Volunteers have transformed the three rooms of 500 S. Oregon Street into a sunny, welcoming place to learn history

Outside banners and historic markers identify the building as a special place in the neighborhood

An altar honoring healers including Teresita Urrea

Banner honoring Teresita Urrea

Walk into the three small rooms of Museo Urbano, and you walk into a community and a history suddenly illuminated by sunshine and the hard work of volunteers.

This working class neighborhood in South El Paso is truly a bridge between Mexico and the United States, yet in earliest memory it was Apache country.  Museo's exhibits tell a rich rapidly unfolding history of this building at 500 S. Oregon Street:

1827      The site is purchased by Juan Maria Ponce de Leone, part of the area known as El Bosque along the Rio Grande
1880      Ben Dowel, first mayor of El Paso owns the land. His wife, Juana Marquez Dowel is a Tigua Indian.  Their photos are on display.
1881      An adobe U.S. Customs House is built on the property
1893      It becomes a Ladies Hospital, championed by humanitarian and philanthropist Olga Kohlberg
1895      The building becomes the Aoy Public School, also called the Mexican Preparatory School, and teaches 500 barrio children
1896-7   Santa Teresita Urrea, a healer who had inspired revolutions in Mexico and banished by President Diaz moves to the building.  Two hundred people a day come to the home to be healed; here, three assassination attempts are made on Urrea's life.
1900      The building becomes a Chinese laundry
1907      Pierre Cazanabe aka Felix Robert, a French bullfighter buys the building.  While here, he organizes bullfights and fights between bulls and buffalos at Juarez's bullring.  Now brick, the building bears his name.
1911      The building becomes home to a bicycle repair shop
1916      The building becomes a saloon
1919-20 Henry Flipper, the first African-American graduate of West Point, and Buffalo Soldier, lives in the building while working as a land surveyor for Albert Fall, then a U.S. Senator and later Secretary of the Interior and key player in the Teapot Dome scandal.

The building continues to be a residence, making it a living, breathing historic site.  Museo Urbano is clearly a labor of love for countless volunteers--including UTEP students and History Department Chair Dr. Yolanda Leyva, and author of Ringside Seat to a Revolution, David Romo.  They've added photographs of early history from the time it was a laundry, a school, a hospital.  There is a video display of more historic images.  An altar honors healers and an exhibit displays plants used for healing.

Inside there's a community scrapbook, a place individuals have added their own images and memories of this neighborhood.  Community members have also brought in altar items, healing plant materials and other artifacts for display.

Come see it yourself before June 15.  Museo Urbano is open Saturdays and Sundays, 10-2, and by appointment.  Walking tours of the neighborhood are also available by appointment.  For more information, call Dr. Yolanda Leyva, 915-747-5508. 

With additional funding...and they are seeking funds...they can keep the building open to the public past June 15.

Museo Urbano is supported in a variety of ways by many departments at University of Texas-El Paso, by the El Paso Public Library, El Paso County Historical Society, and our own Heritage Tourism Partnership Grant through the Texas Mountain Trail and the Texas Historical Commission.  However, the site slated for demolition in a standing city renewal plan. There is a desire to make the area a historic district, hopefully saving important sites like 500 S. Oregon for future generations. Here's a video from Luis Alberto Urrea, about the site.

For more information on Museo Urbano, follow their Facebook page here.

Now THAT'S a campsite!

Our recent camping trip to Big Bend Ranch State Park revealed so many of Far West Texas' assets, the reasons people keep coming back to our corner of the state:

• Our campsite, as you can see, allowed us a private wilderness experience.  And how rare is that these days?  Pretty darn rare. 
• We were surrounded by evidence of geological history, with extinct volcanoes in the area, and volcanic rock all around.
• As we drove into the park, we passed right by some ancient rock art, pictographs of human figures
• The nearby Fort Leaton and the town of Presidio were established early, in 1683.
• This land was traveled by the Comanche and Buffalo soldiers, and by refugees from the Mexican Revolution a 100 years ago.
• A few miles away in the park's center, sits the historic ranch house dating back to 1908, and there was plenty of evidence of old ranch buildings throughout the park.
• We heard coyote in the night, and in the morning the birding was excellent. (The park is on the new regional wildlife/birding map.) We hiked and if we'd brought our mountain bikes, world-class "epic" rides were available right there in the park. 

We had adventure, history, archaeology, nature, geology all right there waiting for us.  And we can't wait to go back!

Read all about it!

We've been posting about the history of the Mexican Revolution the past couple of days, and wanted you to know about another great place to visit in the city, Cinco Puntos Press.  An independent publisher of wonderful books about the Southwest, this press has several great books on the history of the revolution.  You can visit them yourself to see their full selection of books for kids, young adults and adults--both fiction and non-fiction.  Catch them at 701 Texas Avenue in El Paso, just east of downtown.

We keep their Ringside Seat to a Revolution by David Dorado Romo in our car, so we can find historic sites related to the revolution as we travel through El Paso!

Mexican Revolution historical walking tour in El Paso, part 2!

Here's another stop on the Mexican Revolution tour of El Paso from the El Paso Times....just down the street from yesterday's entry.  This beautiful building is located at 301 S. El Paso Street, and was the location for the Shelton-Payne Arms Company and the Charles Hotel.  According to the paper, "The Shelton-Payne Arms Company supplied arms and ammunition to all factions. Archival records show that the company had assets exceeding $1.1 million dollars in 1913. The Merrick Building, which housed the company, was constructed in 1887."

Be sure to click through to the El Paso Times' special section on the Mexican Revolution...to hear an audio clip with more information about this important historical site.While in El Paso, don't miss the Museum of History's terrific exhibit on the city's role in the revolution.

Mexican Revolution historical walking tour of El Paso!

The El Paso Times recently published a special section on that city's role in the Mexican Revolution, and it is a fascinating history you can continue to experience, since many of the locations are still intact.  We took part of the walking tour they published.  Pictured here is the Alhambra Theatre building at 209 S. El Paso Street.  Quoting the paper:  "This theater was constructed by Rodolfo and Manuel Cruz in 1914 for $150,000 to cater to the affluent Mexican exile community that relocated here during the revolution, as well as Anglo-American audiences. It featured vaudeville specialties and motion pictures. The Alhambra was designed by Henry Trost in a Spanish Moorish architectural style."

Click here to see the special section of the El Paso Times online.

Click here to read about a special exhibit about the Mexican Revolution at the El Paso Museum of History, on display now.

Mexican Revolution Anniversary

Starting this spring, there will be celebrations and commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution.  We've built a webpage with links to community events across the Texas Mountain Trail region, visit: www.texasmountaintrail.com/revolution

Thanks to the Museum of the Big Bend in Alpine, for use of this photo of Pancho Villa, and Generals Pershing and Patton.