El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1915-02-06
Boosting Trips Made by Ell
Pasoans Add Materially
to City's Trade.

Present indications are that the year
1915 will see a revival of the Trade ex-
cursion'' as a factor in the business
and social life of Ell Paso. For ten
years past, till last year, excursions
were run with more or less regularity
and have always been pronounced by
those who made the trips as being well
worth all they had cost in time and
money.
No excursion was run in 1914 and the
local merchants say they felt a direct
loss as n result of the failure to send
trainlOad of FL Paso boosters" through
the territory from which this city nat
urally draws its trade.
How Loss Was Felt
This loss was not so much a matter
of dollars and cents, as the trade of Ell
Paso's stores during 1914 was greater
than ever before, but they knew they
were not selling in such quantities to
the people Of certain localities as they
sold to those same people in years
when the excursions had been run
Il know this to be a fact" said gen
eral manager Miller of the White
House, in explaining why he would like
to see the Trade excursion" feature
of the city's business life revived that
every fall after one of our excursions
had been run hundreds of women from
towns in New Mexico, Arizona or West
Texas would come into our store to buy
and nearly every one of them would
have something to say about having
seen the 'El PasO Boosters as they had
passed through their home town in
some one of those states.
Evidence Of Value.
ITO me that was the best possible eV-
idence that the excursions had value as
advertisements, and that the money
they cost was money well spent. We
didn't run an excursion last fall and
as result we missed many of the buy
ers we used to see following the eXcur-
siOns of former years. The excursions
ought to be revived, and I hope they
will be-"
ExcursiOnists Missed Too.
Mr.. Miller's experience has probably
been the experience of many other mer-
chants and manufacturers. And. while
Ell PasO has missed the buyers who
were formerly attracted to the big
stores by the good shOwings made by
the boosters" while away from home,
there is no doubt that the dweIlers in
the towns which formed the stopping
places Of the "trippers" have missed
them.
The excursions were always well
managed and the visits Of the excur-
sionists used to be looked forward to
with a great deal of interest by the
people of the towns on the itinerary
Went to Make Friends.
IL was always the rule that the FL
PasO trade excursionists made the
trip for the purpose of entertaining the
people visited rather than to be enter
tanned by them. That made them many
times more welcome than would other
wise have been the case. and often
resulted in greatly augmented crowds
at the depot or along the streets or in
the town hall in case of protracted
stops, to see and hear the FL Pasoans.
It gave the latter better audiences and
consequently better opportunities 70
get acquainted; and to get acquainted
was the prime object Of the trip, in the
last analysis
No Drummers Permitted.
mere was another rule, too. and It
was enforced to the letter. That was
that there should be no soliciting of
orders by any of the excursionists.
That rule and its enforcement worked
well The people learned to know that
when an FL PasO excursion got into
town the whole time of the excursion