The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-02-16
AN INTERESTING CITY.
ELP4SO, TEX, THE HUB OF THE
SOUTHWEST.

A Garden Spot I'm tSse Desert-dedeFn in
AN Its AppoIntments-Its RadIating
RaiIrOads-YouthfuI Appearance of
Its InhabItants-Noa a Boom City
Interesting Letter from a New Hayener
Ell Paso, Texas, Feb, 1904 short
time ago gave little sketch Of FL
Paso, Texas, telling of its location and
its buildings, and giving an outline of
its history.
Now 1 will endeavor to give a de-
scription of it from an economic and
business standpoint.
When one arrives in FL Paso after
travelling through barren and uninter-
esting country for from six to twelve
hundred miles he finds there a city
modern in all its appointments. 1t has
several churches, four national banks,
large modern hospital, good hotels, a
number of schools and a high school
(recently built, which cost fifty thou
, sand dollars), and three daily papers
with local and national and foreign
news. 1t is equipped with water and
gas works, a sewer system, two tele-
graph and one telephone line, two cleo
trio light and power plants and a twelve
mile electric street railway. 1t has
good streets and they are kept in clean
condition. In its stores can be found
all the necessities and comforts of life
and styles contemporary with those in
the eastern states.
The number of pupils in the public
schools is about $500.
The rate of taxation on one hundred
dollar valuation (about one-half the &C
tual value) is s1S3 for city purposes
and $1.005 for state and county pur-
poses.
Visitors from other cities often COM
ment on the activity and energy dis
played by the business men of Eel Pasa,
as we'll as upon their average youthful
appearance, very few of them being
over fifty years of age, and one of the
first questions they will ask is, What
is it that makes FL Paso such thirty
ing city," 1t is not boom" city like
many of those in the west, coming into
existence by the chance discovery Of
rich mineral deposits or Of oil, nor is it,
as yet, a city of manufacturing impor-
lance.
By referring to the map it is seen
that Ell Paso can be called the Hub of
the southwest, and that the railroads
are the spokes.
These railroads are the Southern Pa
cific from New Orleans and westward
to Los Angeles and San Francisco; the
Texas and Pacific running eastward to
Fort Worth, Dallas, st. Louis and New
Orleans; the Galveston, Harrisburg and
San Antonio eastward to San Antonio,
Houston and New Orleans; the Atchi-
son, Topeka and Santa Fee northward
to Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis and
Chicago; and the Mexican Central
southwark to the City of Mexico. Be-
sides these are the FL Paso and North
eastern, or white Oaks" to the mine
raj, timber, grazing and agricultural
county one to two hundred miles north
east of Ell Paso, and the FL Paso and
Southwestern, or "Bisbee Line" OPEN
ing up an exceedingly rich and pros
porous mineral district in the neigh
borhood of Bisbee, Ariz., and the Rio
Grande, Sierra Madre and Pacific, or
Sierra Madre Line" running into the
mineral, timber, grazing and agricul-
tural district in the states of Chihua-
hua and Sonora, Mexica.
From this it will be seen that it is in
trade that the city gets its prosperity.
receiving the raw material and pro-
mining ranches
and farms in the surrounding country,
both on this and the other side of the
Rio Grande; and in turn supplying
them with the products and manufac-
tured goods from the great markets and
manufacturing cities of the country.
In giving a description Of Ell Paso one
must refer to the immense plant of the
Ell Paso Smelling works. which lies
three miles west of the city. 1t is one
of the largest smelters In the world, and
since fire there about year ago has
been almost entirely rebuilt, Its tall
chimneys are seen from the high
ground to the northwest of the city,
emitting (day and night volumes of
smoke and fumes.
The works employ about fifteen hun
bred men and have a pay roll of from
forty to fifty thousand dollars per
month, and the company pays to ship
pers from the surrounding country
from eight to ten hundred thousand
dollars month. The territory from
which the Ell Paso Smelling works
draws it's ores includes New Mexico,
Arizona, West Texas and the Mexican
states of Chihuahua, Sonora, Sinaloa,
Durango, Coahuilia and Lower Califor-
MIA.
Much could be said of Ell Paso re-
garding it's fine climate and its health
giving properties to those who suffer
from lung and pulmonary troubles.
But that is another story.
Travellers from the east who pass
through here on their way to California
would derive much pleasure were they
to stop over and see what American en-
ergy has done to build a garden spot in
the desert. W. e. B.