Many festivals are held in the city. One of the largest is the Sun Carnival, which includes a Thanksgiving Day parade in November and the Sun Bowl football game in December. Major Mexican holidays are widely celebrated in El Paso. The city zoo is in Washington Park. El Paso has a mayor-council form of government.
Voters elect a mayor and eight council members, all to two-year terms.
The city government gets most of its revenue from property taxes. Manso and Suma Indians lived in what is now the El Paso area when Europeans first arrived there. Juan de Onate claimed the area for Spain in 1598 and named it El Paso del Norte. Spanish priests set up their first mission in the area in 1659, in what is now Juarez. In 1680, Pueblo Indians drove Spanish settlers out of northern New Mexico.