El Paso Sights

We had a great couple of days in El Paso, TX earlier this week. We had heard many things about it, both good and bad prior to actually visiting, but found it to be quite an interesting and unusual city.  The geography, history and topography of the City contributes greatly to the uniqueness of the area, along with it's very close proximity to Juarez Mexico.

The U.S. City of El Paso is basically wedged into two half's by the a mountain chain (the Franklin Mountains) that cuts right through the center dividing the city into East and West, with only a small sliver of U.S. territory at the base of the chain that makes up the down town area of El Paso.

South of downtown El Paso is the Rio Grande (which is mostly a dry river at this point) and the International Border between the U.S. and Mexico.  South of that borderline the city of Juarez, the fourth largest city in Mexico, fills the expanse as far as the eye can see, constrained only by another mountain chain that the city nestles tightly up against then spreads out sideways filling the empty desert landscape. Here is a day time view looking over the cities and also a view of Juarez in the evening, taken from an overlook high up on the Scenic Road that crosses a portion of the Franklin Mountains.

The immediate buildings are in El Paso, the far buildings are in Juarez

The lights of Juarez

To give you an idea of the size disparity between the two cities, El Paso has a population of approximately 600,000, while Juarez boasts over 2 million people. We spent a good amount of time walking around El Paso and there were portions of it where we felt as if we were in Mexico, as the number of Mexican Nationals far out-weighed the number of Anglos on the streets that reminded us of Canal St. in New York City, with store after store of both knock-off and name brand American products.

When we arrived on Monday, Memorial day, the business areas of the city were quiet, but the shopping district that abuts the International Border crossing was bustling with Mexicans who had walked or bussed over to the U.S. to shop for American goods or eat fast food at KFC, Taco Bell, Burger King and McDonald's. Here is what that shopping area looked like.

During our visit we spent a few hours at both the El Paso Museum of Art and the El Paso History Museum; both were enjoyable and free of charge. We also walked about two miles out of the downtown area to visit the Chamizal National Memorial.

In the visitor center we learned that Congress established the site to commemorate the Chamizal Convention Treaty of 1963 ending a long-standing border dispute between the U.S. and Mexico.  The issue of the exact location of the border, which had been established by earlier treaty to be the Rio Grande river became an issue when floods and droughts began to shift the course of river and it was no longer clear to whom some properties belonged.

Then President John F. Kennedy took up the issue and worked with the Mexican government to finally resolve the issue, which they did by creating a "permanent" river course, through the building of cement channels that would in effect keep the river in the same place. They established a permanent location for the river that was equitable to both countries, giving back a portion of disputed lands to Mexico who had lost land as the river shifted south.  Lyndon B. Johnson and Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos unveiled the new boundary marker signaling the peaceful end of the Chamizal issue in 1966. Both sides agreed to put a National Park on each side of the border as well.

One of our last stops was at this El Paso institution, the El Paso Saddleblanket Company. It was great fun to walk around their giant wholesale outlet and look at the saddles, blankets, rugs and other Western/Southwestern trinkets.

All in all, it was an interesting trip!