History of El Paso Co. TX Submitted by Doris Harrison dot@whc.net ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** History of El Paso del Norte As the explorers approached the Rio Grande from the south, Spanish explorers in the colonial period viewed two mountain ranges rising out of the desert with a deep chasm between. This site they named El Paso del Norte (the Pass of the North), and it became the location of two future border cities, Ciudad Juárez on the south or right bank of the Rio Grande and El Paso, Texas, on the opposite side of the river. The arrival of the first Spanish expedition at the Pass of the North in 1581 marked the beginning of more than 400 years of history in the El Paso area. It was followed in 1598 by the colonizing expedition under Juan de Oñate. On April 30, 1598, in a ceremony at a site near present San Elizario, Oñate took formal possession of the entire territory drained by the Rio Grande and brought Spanish civilization to the Pass of the North. In 1659 Fray García de San Francisco founded Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Mission, which still stands in downtown Ciudad Juárez, the oldest structure in the El Paso area. The Pueblo revolt of 1680 sent Spanish colonists and Tigua Indians of New Mexico fleeing southward to take refuge at the Pass. By 1682 five settlements were founded south of the river-El Paso del Norte, San Lorenzo, Senecú, Ysleta, and Socorro, thus providing the Pass with a concentration of population from that time to the present. A presidio was built in 1684. The area became a trade center on one of the historic caminos reales, or royal highways, and agriculture flourished, particularly the vineyards, producing wine and brandy that ranked in quality with the best in the realm. When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821 the El Paso area and what is now the American Southwest became a part of the Mexican nation. The municipal council of El Paso del Norte granted land north of the Rio Grande to Juan María Ponce de Leon, and it became a thriving agricultural and ranching enterprise. With the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Mexico in May 1846, Col. Alexander Doniphan and his Missouri volunteers defeated the Mexicans at the battle of Brazito, entered El Paso del Norte, and occupied the city of Chihuahua in early 1847. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of February 2, 1848, fixed the boundary between the two nations at the Rio Grande, and thus El Paso del Norte, the future Ciudad Juárez, became a bordertown. By late 1849, aided by the gold rush to California, five settlements had been established by AngloAmericans north of the river, one of them, known as Franklin, on the ranch of former proprietor, Ponce de León. Simeon Hart, flour merchant, secessionist, and pioneer El Pasoan, was born in Highland, New York, on March 28, 1816. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, received training as a civil engineer, moved to the Southwest in 1848 as an adjutant in a Missouri cavalry unit, and fought with distinction in the battle of Santa Cruz de Rosales on March 16, 1848. In 1859, however, pioneer Anson Mills named this settlement El Paso, thus generating considerable confusion that lasted for almost thirty years. During the period of the French intervention in Mexico the republican cause under the leadership of Benito Juárez took refuge in El Paso del Norte in August 1865 and remained there for almost a year. With the aid of American arms and munitions the tide began to turn in favor of the Juárez republicans, who returned to Mexico City in triumph in 1867. On September 16, 1888, El Paso del Norte was renamed Ciudad Juárez, and thus the historic name El Paso became the sole possession of the bustling little railroad town at the western tip of Texas. PONCE DE LEON (?-1852). Juan María Ponce de León, wealthy merchant of El Paso del Norte (present Juárez, Chihuahua) and original owner of the site of present El Paso, petitioned the ayuntamiento of El Paso del Norte in January 1827 for some 215 acres of mud flats on the north bank of the Rio Grande. He was granted two caballerías that belonged to the city of El Paso del Norte, bounded on the south by the Rio Grande and valued at eighty pesos. The grant was approved on September 20, 1827, and Ponce de León immediately set about improving the property. He dug an irrigation ditch, planted corn, grapes, and wheat, and built several adobe roundhouses for protection from Indian raiders. In 1830 a flood washed away one of the structures, so he rebuilt on higher ground. After that same flood Ponce almost doubled his holdings when the river eroded into El Paso del Norte. Because of the flood damage, he petitioned for an additional grant and was awarded the alluvial accretion between the old and new riverbeds. After the Mexican War it became obvious that the United States military would play a part in the area. Recognizing this, Benjamin Franklin Coons offered to purchase the grant for $18,000; fearing that the grant might not be recognized by Texas, Ponce de León accepted the offer. In the summer of 1849 he sold the property to Benjamin Franklin Coons, whereupon it became known as Coon's Rancho. On November 7, 1848, the United States government ordered the establishment of a post at or near the pass, and on September 8,1849, the Third Infantry leased the main buildings on Coons' Rancho, plus six acres, for $4,200 a year. Coons rented land to the army after the arrival of Jefferson Van Horne, who called the encampment "the Post Opposite El Paso [del Norte]." In 1851 United States troops were transferred from the area, and this plus other business losses made Coons unable to make payments. Ponce de León repossessed the land and managed it until his death on July 1, 1852. Title passed to his wife and daughter, with the property managed by his soninlaw, Mariano Varela. arela established a freighting business with William T. Smith, who offered to purchase the grant for $10,000. Still fearing that the title would not be recognized by Texas, the owners sold the land. The grant comprised slightly more than 599 acres. From time to time Smith sold small unsurveyed tracts to persons who had settled on the land. Confirmation of the grant was included in the Relinquishment Act passed by the Sixth Legislature, but this was vetoed by Governor Elisha M. Pease. In 1858 Smith and others in the area were able to get a special relief act passed that acknowledged the validity of the grant. On June 15, 1872, the United States Circuit Court for West Texas held that the grant included only the original approximately 215 acres. In a suit filed on February 24, 1873, in the Twentyfifth Judicial District Court of Texas and upheld by the Texas Supreme Court, it was found that the grant was larger because the river had changed course, that the original grant was 247 acres, and that the accretion grant of 1830 was approximately 352 acres. On February 21, 1877, a jury in a hearing at the United States Circuit Court agreed. ANSON MILLS Anson Mills, surveyor, builder, army officer, engineer, American boundary commissioner, diplomat, and inventor, was born at Thorntown, Indiana, on August 31, 1834, the son of James P. and Sarah (Kenworthy) Mills. He attended school in Indiana and New York and accepted an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1855. After flunking out at West Point in 1857, he rode the Butterfield Overland Mail stage to El Paso, where he arrived on May 8, 1858. He was appointed district surveyor and surveyed forts Quitman, Davis, Stockton, and Bliss, all in West Texas. He also built the Overland Building, for three decades the largest structure in El Paso. On February 28, 1859, Mills submitted a street map of a settlement called variously Ponce's Rancho, Franklin, and Smithsville. He called the little community El Paso, and the name stuck. The downtown is still practically as he platted it. Mills encouraged his brothers Emmett and William Wallace Millsqv to settle in El Paso. Anson laid out the village of Pinos Altos in New Mexico, feuded with almost everyone of importance in El Paso, and voted against secession.qv After failing to talk the commander at Fort Bliss out of surrendering the federal fort to Confederate forces, he accepted a Washington commission in the Union Army. His brother W. W. remained in the Southwest as a Union spy. Emmett caught the last stage out of El Paso and was killed in New Mexico when Mangas Colorado and his Apache s ambushed the coach. After an undistinguished Civil War career, Anson Mills remained in the army during the Indian campaigns. After the Little Big Horn debacle, he took part in the "horsemeat march" during Gen. George Crook's Big Horn and Yellowstone expedition. As the starving army began eating its own horses, Mills led a supply detachment and encountered Indians. For his role in the resulting fight at Slim Buttes, Mills always believed he deserved the Medal of Honor, though he never received it. During his military years he designed and patented the woven ammunition belt. The invention made him wealthy. On October 13, 1868, he married Hannah Casser, and they had two children. By 1894 Mills had been transferred to El Paso, retired as a brigadier general, and was sworn in as the American bound ary commissioner. During the next few years he reestablished the Mexican border on the island of San Elizario and was responsible for straightening the Rio Grande by severing the Córdova banco, an improvement that relieved serious flooding at El Paso. Mills advocated a major international dam at El Paso, which eventually went to Elephant Butte in New Mexico, 120 miles north. He practically wrote the Mexican treaty, "An Equitable Distribution of the Waters of the Rio Grande," which promised Mexico an annual 60,000 acre-feet of water. He also wrote the 1905 treaty for the elimination of bancos Mills is best remembered, however, for the boundary dispute with Mexico over the Chamizal tract and for the Mills Building in El Paso. As the American boundary commissioner he refused to accept the 1911 arbitration agreement that gave the El Paso Chamizal to Mexico. The Mills Building began as the Grand Central Hotel, which Mills constructed in 1883. When the hotel burned, he replaced it with the Mills Building in 1911, at that time the largest concrete monolith in the world. Today it is no longer the highest building in El Paso, but it remains a major El Paso landmark. At the age ofeighty-seven Mills wrote his autobiography, My Story (1918). He retired from the boundary commission in 1914 and died in Washington, D.C., on November 5, 1924. He was buried with honors in Arlington National Cemetery. SIMEON HART Simeon Hart, flour merchant, secessionist, and pioneer El Pasoan, was born in Highland, New York, on March 28, 1816. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, received training as a civil engineer, moved to the Southwest in 1848 as an adjutant in a Missouri cavalry unit, and fought with distinction in the battle of Santa Cruz de Rosales on March 16, 1848. He married Jesusita Siqueiros, daughter of a wealthy Chihuahua flour miller, in late 1849, after which he took his bride to the Pass of the North, where he established his flour mill, El Molino. Several years later he built his residence, later La Hacienda Cafe, which was still standing in 1990. Described by United States circuit-riding attorney W. W. H. Davis as a large and luxurious residence built in the Mexican style, it served for years as a haven for travelers. Hart's first contract with the army, signed on March 28, 1850, provided that he would furnish flour for one year to the posts of Doña Ana, the post opposite El Paso del Norte, and San Elizario for eleven cents a pound. In 1851 he accepted a contract to furnish the same three posts plus the escort to the United States Boundary commission for a year at 12½ cents a pound. Although he frequently complained that the terms he received from the army fell short of what he thought he ought to receive, he always managed to do better than his competitors, and in the census of 1860 he reported the value of his property, real and personal, to be $350,000, a sum that made him the wealthiest man in the area. He served as a county judge from 1852 to 1854. The outbreak of the Civil War found Hart, like almost all of the Anglo-Americans in the area, pro-Southern and secessionist. At a local election held in Ben Dowell's saloon only two votes in opposition to secession were cast, and everyone in town knew who they were-Anson and W. W. Mills.qqv "Champagne for the secessionists," shouted Hart when he saw W. W. enter the saloon, "and the noose for all Unionists." Mills never forgave Hart's role in getting him incarcerated at Fort Bliss, and they remained enemies for a decade or more. Mills almost succeeded in taking over Hart's extensive assets. Under the color of authority granted by the federal district court at Mesilla, in Doña Ana County, Territory of New Mexico, a United States marshal for the district, Abraham Cutler, supervised the seizure and sale of properties of those El Pasoans known for their Southern sympathies. Even though Hart had received a presidential pardon, his property, including the flour mill, dwelling houses, corrals, ranchhouses, machinery, and stables, sold for $3,000. In time El Paso County residents who had lost properties appealed to the New Mexico Supreme Court, which ruled that the Mesilla district had no jurisdiction. In 1868 the United States Supreme Court upheld the decision in the case of United States vs. S. Hart. Even so, Hart had to battle W. W. Mills for the recovery of his property, a long struggle which finally came to an end in May 1873, when the Mills brothers accepted a payment of ten dollars. Hart died on January 19, 1874. At the time of his death, he was the editor and proprietor of the El Paso Sentinel. He and Jesusita lie in an unmarked grave in the El Paso area, the mausoleum built by his son Juan having been destroyed in the construction of a highway overpass. COONS' RANCHO Coons' Rancho was at a site now in downtown El Paso. In 1827 Juan María Ponce de León a wealthy merchant in El Paso del Norte, Mexico, bought some 211 acres bounded to the south and west by the Rio Grande. He dug an irrigation ditch and began growing grapes and wheat on the site, which became known as Ponce's Rancho. A flood in 1830 washed away an adobe hut used to house Ponce's workers, thus forcing him to rebuild on higher ground, but the same flood nearly doubled his holdings by eroding into El Paso del Norte. After the Mexican War, when the rancho became part of the United States, Ponce sold it to a St. Louis trader named Benjamin Franklin Coons whereupon it became known as Coons' Rancho or Franklin. When Maj. Jefferson Van Horne reached the El Paso area in September 1849 he station-ed four companies of the Third Infantry on the rancho, six acres of which Coons rented to the United States Army for $4,200 a year. Troops remained at the "Post Opposite El Paso [del Norte]" until late 1851, when they were trans-ferred to Fort Fillmore in New Mexico. The loss of income from the army, combined with other business reverses, ruined Coons financially, and Ponce repossessed the rancho. A post office was established there under the name of El Paso in 1852. After Ponce died that same year, his wife and daughter sold the property for $10,000 to a trader from Kentucky named William T. (Uncle Billy) Smith. Smith divided the rancho and began selling tracts, but sold out to the El Paso Company, which included Josiah F. Crosby and other prominent local citizens. They hired Anson Millsqv to survey the property. Mills completed the job in February 1859, by which time the property had gained another thirty-five acres, thanks to the changing course of the Rio Grande. The property eventually became the site of El Paso. Benjamin Franklin Coons, merchant, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1826, the son of David and Mary Coons. He led wagon trains to Santa Fe in 1846, 1847, and 1848, and by September 1848 had established himself as a merchant in El Paso del Norte and elsewhere in Chihuahua. Coons bought ranch property near El Paso del Norte from Juan María Ponce de León in 1849 and leased the main buildings and six acres to the United States government for $250 dollars a month as the site for the first military post in the area. He then proceeded to build a tavern, warehouse, stables, and store just west of the army post. Hoping to capitalize on the potential market, he established a partner- ship with Lewis and Groesbeck of San Antonio in 1850. Financial difficulties began almost immediately, however. The first wagon train, plagued by unscrupulous drivers and a scarcity of water, took nearly five months to travel from San Antonio, and most of the shipment was ruined as a result. Also, that summer Coons absorbed a loss totalling nearly $18,000, having accepted several bills of credit that later proved to be forgeries. He went to California in late 1850, regained a measure of financial security, and returned to El Paso early in 1851. Unfortunately for him, when the United States troops left Coons' Rancho in September, 1851, Coons lost his most reliable source of income and was soon forced to default on his property payments. His ranch repossessed, he returned to California to seek yet another fortune. He apparently achieved some measure of success herding sheep, moved back to St. Louis in 1856, and married Sophie Delor in 1859. Later censuses listed him as a farmer and teamster. Coons died in St. Louis on December 14, 1892. The Franklin community (later renamed El Paso) and the Franklin Mountains are said to have been named for him. All Rights Reserved @ 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001 El Paso Co., Tx GenWeb Project. This page is part of the US GenWeb Project and Tx GenWeb Project. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data and images maybe used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or for other presentation without express permission by the contributor(s).