By Olivia Kelly
The founding and growth of El Paso have resulted in a city that has advanced considerably. Looking at El Paso’s history, it went from a barren wasteland to a booming metropolis and finally to the modern borderland city it is today. The Southwestern Railroad System aided El Paso, bringing raw materials and ore from mining companies in Northern Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico to El Paso for processing. The city realized its full economic potential due to the influx of capital provided by the Southwestern Railway in collaboration with mining companies. One such company, the Phelps Dodge Mining Company, became the most engaged in the city’s railways.
As the railway grew and more mining companies took advantage of the convenient hauling provided by locomotives, more depots were built, including the Southwestern Depot. The Phelps Dodge Mining Company, originally from New York but currently owned by Freeport-McMoRan, an American mining company headquartered in the Freeport-McMoRan Center in Phoenix, Arizona, constructed the old El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Depot (EP&SW) Depot in 1903. However, a newer EP&SW Railroad Depot in Tucson, Arizona, was built in 1912.
The Phelps Dodge Mining Company succeeded in the 1900s because copper became increasingly valuable. Copper investments, Arizona’s copper mines, copper production, and the production of other metals were the primary sources of revenue for The Phelps Dodge Mining Company.
The American Smelting and Refining Corporation (ASARCO) existed alongside the Phelps Dodge Mining Company. Robert Safford Towne, a young mining engineer, founded ASARCO in 1881 as a smelter to process abundant copper, silver, and other ores found in New Mexico, neighboring Arizona, and northern Mexico. ASARCO continued growing after 1902, opening new facilities in Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Chihuahua, México. By 1899, ASARCO established its first copper smelter in El Paso, resulting in the city becoming economically significant, serving as a major rail stop for the smelting of mined ores. These plants provided jobs and capital but caused substantial pollution in the area. Smeltertown, a community near the ASARCO factory populated mostly by ASARCO workers, suffered the brunt of its toxic emissions. Although these businesses were profitable, most employees were never fairly compensated for their efforts.
The EP&SW Railroad generated considerable money and many jobs in El Paso but with subpar pay. It took lots of manpower and materials to keep the railroad running. Phelps Dodge, which mined copper and other metals, and ASARCO, which processed the ore and metals, required workers to keep up with the daily shipments. Both companies attracted migrant workers, mostly from México. The companies paid them poorly for their long, arduous hours. Workers of Mexican and Mexican American descent long fought for better pay, as they were paid only $1.25 per hour, on average. As Monica Perales writes in Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community, “Employers further characterized Mexicans as docile and lacking in ambition, traits that perpetuated the notion that they were controllable and exploitable on the job, and that called into question their masculine right to higher wages and better working conditions.” Perales’ statement brings to light Mexican and Mexican American workers’ struggles working for the mining and smelting facilities. Especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both contributed to the damaging racial stereotypes perpetuating Mexicans as “cheap labor.”
The United Steel Workers union became the voice for these employees. Several Phelps Dodge and ASARCO workers went on strike or left their jobs to protest their unequal pay. Marcia Hatfield Daudistel and Mimi R. Gladstein, in The Women of Smeltertown, assert that “Picketers attacked the cars of some workers who defied the union leaders and tried to go to work with rocks and clubs.” However necessary, these strikes devastated many people’s homes, even as they served a greater good. Workers who did not wish to participate in the strikes but still showed up to work risked having their possessions destroyed.
Despite numerous strikes by smelter workers, the 1912 strike against ASARCO was the most significant. Workers in El Paso and other ASARCO-owned plants across the United States participated in the unorganized strike, protesting low wages and long hours. Typically, these strikes lasted two months before the union reached a compromise with the employer and the striking workers. As each strike ended, the settlements provided enough money for many families to buy homes, quit ASARCO, or leave, and that is what many families in El Paso’s Smeltertown did.
Smeltertown, built around the ASARCO smelting plant, was the city’s first prominent industrial neighborhood. From the outside, Smeltertown looked like a rundown neighborhood, lacking amenities found in more affluent parts of El Paso. Perales states, “Paved streets, streetlights, updated sewage systems, and regular sanitation services were a luxury reserved for other parts of town as late as the 1960s… then there was also the matter of the smoke.” Smeltertown was not the most comfortable or prosperous community, but employees working at the local smelter and refinery called it home.
Environmental risks associated with smelting emissions from the factory made this location less than ideal. Testing conducted by the El Paso City and County Health Department in early 1972 revealed that 72 residents of Smeltertown, including 35 children requiring hospitalization, suffered from lead poisoning, says the Texas Historical Commission. Nonetheless, many in Smeltertown appreciated its proximity to the ASARCO factory, which employed most of the town’s workforce. The destruction of this close-knit community, which grew up west of the smelter in the 1880s, remains a sad chapter in El Paso’s history, not only because of Smelter Towns’ location, but because of how negatively ASARCO affected Smelter Town, El Paso’s environment, and its residents.
ASARCO and Smeltertown ceased operations in El Paso and no longer exist. El Paso and the State of Texas sued ASARCO for $1 million in 1970. Allegations claiming ASARCO violated the Texas Clean Air Act, with the smelting company having to pay medical bills for the many families affected by its deadly emissions, were settled. ASARCO agreed to pay $80,500 for violating numerous pollution laws and, per Perales’ study, “a posting of $30,000 against future violations, and a pledge to install more than $750,000 worth of emissions control equipment.” Shortly after the court settlement, ASARCO purchased the land on which Smelter Town was built and forced its inhabitants to relocate. Residents of Smelter Town moved to safer neighborhoods in El Paso, far from ASARCO and the high lead levels that plagued Smelter Town. In 1999, after years of decline, ASARCO finally shut down, and today, the only trace of Smelter town is its cemetery.
Like Smeltertown and ASARCO, the Southwestern Railway is different from what it used to be, especially after copper prices declined around WWI, as did the railway’s fortunes. Adam Burns writes in El Paso & Southwestern Railroad that “in the 1920s the [rail]road was picked up by Southern Pacific (SP) and eventually fully merged into its system by the early 1960s.” Today, Burns explains, “Some sections of the EP&SW are still in operation although after SP ownership much of the railroad was abandoned or sold as traffic dried up.”
The deteriorating railroad tracks of these once-operating lines are left behind as historical relics. Museums, such as the El Paso Railroad and Transportation Museum on San Antonio Street, house and maintain locomotives such as Locomotive No.1, the first locomotive that powered down El Paso’s rail lines but has since been retired. Seeing the many remnants of the Southwestern Railroad and learning about its history is a thrilling experience. However, the old and new El Paso Southwestern Railroad Freight Depots are the most interesting.
Along with the El Paso Union Depot, the Southwestern Railroad Freight Depot of Tucson, Arizona, and El Paso was one of El Paso’s most important train stations and freight warehouses. The Southwestern Railroad Depot is a significant part of El Paso’s and the region’s rich historical legacy due to its design, construction year, original owner, and purpose on the EP&SW railroad.
The 1912 EP&SW Depot in Arizona has many interesting facts and features, including its transformation into a fake prison for the 1972 film “Pocket Money,” although the last train left in 1924. Equally fascinating, the 1903 EP&SW Depot has since been turned into an astonishing venue, St. Rogers Depot, by the now owners Steve Santamaria and Isha Rogers, with Steve coming down from Denver in 2014 and Isha being the daughter of former El Paso Mayor Jonathan Rogers. Sadly, many may have driven past these depots while running errands around town, paying them no mind.
Image caption: El Paso Union Depot (Courtesy of Bobbobbb, Wikimedia Commons)
The old EP&SW Freight Depot, completed in 1903, and the newer Freight Depot, completed in 1912 by Phelps Dodge, were designed by renowned architect Daniel H. Burnham, born September 4, 1946, in Henderson, New York. Dan Austin of HistoricDetroit.org considers Burnham “one of the greatest American architects, a father of the skyscraper and one of the most influential minds behind early 20th-century architecture.” American architect, urban designer, and proponent of the Beaux-Arts Movement, Burnham’s design of the EP&SW Freight Depot contributed significantly to the City Beautiful Movement, a movement centered around the idea that “design could not be separated from social issues and should encourage civic pride and engagement,” according to researchers Ida Yalzadeh and Naomi Blumberg. The movement includes El Paso and the extensive urban planning that comes with it. Burnham received two honorary degrees from the prestigious universities of Harvard and Yale and is recognized for designing the Montauk, the Rookery, and the Monadnock, all significant projects to restore the city of Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and known for his love of classical designs and Beaux Arts-style architecture.
Burnham collaborated with many companies and people throughout his career. He began working for American architect and engineer William Le Baron Jenney, regarded for building the first skyscraper in 1884, Chicago’s Home Insurance Building. Burnham also joined forces with Chicago pioneer architect John van Osdel briefly after his time with Le Baron Jenney. He later collaborated with Peter Bonnett Wight, an American 19th-century architect from New York City who worked in Chicago.
The older 1903 EP&SW Depot is surprisingly devoid of classical Beaux Art details, especially compared to Burnham’s earlier works. The Union Depot, the newer 1912 EP&SW Railroad Depot in Tucson, Arizona, and the other works reflect his devotion to the Beaux Arts Movement and the Beaux-Arts architecture style. The Beaux Art, or Fine Arts, Movement originated in France at the prestigious university of Ecole des Beaux-Arts. What makes Beaux-Arts significant in the 19th and 20th centuries is its popularity arose from the World’s Columbia Exposition, a fair commemorating Christopher Columbus’ voyage. G.J. Scott, in “Beaux Arts Movement Continues,” remarks that this style “uniquely marries the classical elements of Greek and Roman architecture,” making the Beaux Art style not unique but a magnificent fusion of pre-existing styles. Unsurprisingly, this exquisite architectural design was popular in America during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The newer 1912 EP&SW Depot is a superb illustration of the Beaux-Arts style. Compared to the old EP&SW Depot, its sophisticated facade and sleek interior are sure to impress, with its exterior, having a concrete base, brick terracotta walls. Its pitched red Mexican-channel tile roof matches its tan Indiana limestone columns and terracotta trim. Many proclaim the rotunda’s stained glass dome to be this depot’s most visually striking part.
The emphasis on symmetry in Beaux Arts construction makes for a visually pleasing style. Scott explains that Beaux-Arts architecture features white stonework, balconies, arches, columns, symmetrical patterns, and paired statues. There are, however, differences in style compared to the original EP&SW Depot from 1903. The old depot displays a solid Italianate aesthetic. The distinctive features are the brick and stone construction, a dark green roof with deep overhanging eaves, and decorative concrete crowns over its many windows.
Image caption: Daniel Hudson Burnham (Courtesy of RGKMA, Wikimedia Commons
The Italianate style is lovely, just like the Beaux-art style. Ironically, Italy is not its place of origin. S. Duncan’s “Italianate Architecture” article argues that England’s Picturesque Movement, of which this style is a part, sought to harmonize manufactured structures with their natural surroundings. Italianate architecture was prevalent in England from 1845 to 1875 and became especially popular in America with Texas’s annexation in 1845. Duncan describes its key features as “low pitched or flat, hipped roofs, projecting eaves supported by corbels, imposing cornices, pedimented windows, and doors, angled bay windows, cupolas, Belvedere or machicolated towers, loggias, and quoins.”
Though both depots differed in architectural design, they had the joint function of unloading and temporarily storing freight or cargo awaiting onward transportation. Simple and unimportant to some, their operations majorly benefited their location, making both the old and new EP&SW Railroad & Freight Depots unique. The ElPasoHistoryTV video, “El Paso’s Transportation History,” explains that “by 1900, eight railroads had connected through El Paso, making the booming city one of the most important rail connections in the western United States.” Merchants in El Paso and the surrounding area heavily relied on the depots. Since the old EP&SW Depot connected to the busy railway in El Paso, it became a lifeline for merchants shipping their goods or ore to the El Paso smelters. As a result, the railway expanded to Tucson, Arizona, where the new 1912 depot lies, as the article “El Paso & Southwestern Railroad Depot” states, “to better reach the [Phelps Dodge] company’s mining operations.” Today, the depots no longer serve their original function after years of disuse but are listed as local historic landmarks per Preservation Texas.
Although it was only a tiny part of the more extensive railway system, the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Depot was instrumental in the city’s development. Essential nodes in El Paso’s extensive rail network symbolize the growth of the railroad, revealing a side of El Paso unfamiliar to most and honoring the contributions of those who were instrumental in the city’s development. The ruins of Smeltertown demonstrate that although the railroad benefited El Paso’s economy, it adversely affected the city’s environment and residents. The railroad has indeed left its mark on the El Paso community.
Smeltertown : making and remembering a Southwest border community
