Historical Markers Project: Plaza Hotel Site

Research Packet and Narrative by: Vanessa Mendoza and Dr. George D. Torok 

Honors Project, Spring 2002

 National Endowment for the Humanities Historical Markers Project

Historical Narrative: Plaza Hotel (formerly the Hilton Hotel )

The Plaza Hotel, located at 106 Mills Avenue in downtown El Paso, is a fine example of the modernistic Art Deco style of the 1920s. It was designed by Henry C. Trost (1860-1933) for the Hilton Hotel chain and served as one of the city’s most luxurious hotels.  In 1980, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel was designed and constructed for Conrad N. Hilton (1887-1979) who created one of the first international hotel chains. He was a native of San Antonio, New Mexico who entered the hotel business in the 1910s. He acquired and renovated prominent old hotels, built a series of new hotels in the west, and eventually expanded his empire around the world. During the 1920s, Hilton concentrated on building hotels in Texas. El Paso’s Hilton Hotel, the eighth hotel in the Hilton chain, was the first high rise, the largest and the most elaborate. Hilton went on to develop 188 hotels in 38 U.S. cities and 54 cities abroad.

The Hilton Hotel Company invested heavily in the project. In 1929 they arranged for a ninety-nine year lease of the property at Mills and Oregon Streets at an estimated cost of 4.9 million dollars and the R.E. McKee Company was awarded the contract for the building which was estimated to cost more than 1.1 million dollars to construct and furnish.^[i] The new hotel was built on the site of the Hotel Sheldon, constructed in 1888, and once regarded as the “best hotel in the southwest.”^[ii] The hotel was designed by renowned El Paso architect Henry C. Trost. Trost was the principle designer for the architectural firm Trost and Trost. He arrived in El Paso in 1903 and during the next thirty years he developed some of the region’s most striking and unique buildings. Trost was greatly influenced by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright and mastered a wide variety of popular building styles. He was also a pioneer in the use of reinforced concrete. He designed more than 650 buildings in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, 200 of them in El Paso,  during his career.^[iii]

Trost’s Hilton Hotel remains an excellent example of the Art Deco style popular in the 1920s. The seventeen story structure (a fifteen story hotel tower on a 2 story block) was described as combining “semi-modernistic lines” with Indian designs and towered over the center of the city.

The facade of the first two floors featured Art Deco designs and the tower was roofed with green terra cotta tile.^[iv] The interior areas were described as “ultra-modern” with rooms featuring fully electric lighting and ceiling fans, radios, and private baths in each room.^[v] When opened in July 1930, the new Hilton Hotel was touted as a virtual “fairlyland” with “exotic Spanish decorations,” “bellhops garbed in Spanish costumes,” “mazes of chrysanthemuns, dahlias, and bluebonnets” throughout the lobby.^[vi] Hundreds attended the opening ceremonies, thousands toured the building, and the entire event was broadcast by local radio stations. 

Although Hilton began construction of the hotel just as the Great Depression hit, it survived the 1930s and underwent several renovations. In 1936 one hundred rooms were air-conditioned and refurnished and an entirely new cocktail lounge was constructed.^[vii] By the 1940s it had established a reputation for elegance and became a social center for the city. Conrad Hilton’s mother resided in the hotel in the 1940s and Elizabeth Taylor briefly lived there during her marriage to Conrad’s son, Nicky. Several prominent El Pasoans also called the Hilton Hotel their home.^[viii]