City on the Edge The origins of El Paso’s colonization are international boundary, the Rio Grande, cut the found in 1598, when Spanish conquistador pre-existing city in half, politically dissecting Don Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande the land in two. The city to the south of the with 400 soldiers and 270 women and river took on the name Ciudad Juárez and the city to the north took the name El Paso. children, settling in the mountain pass. This Although politically separate since 1848, quickly became known as El Paso del Norte or quite literally, “The Pass to the North.” The the cities of Juárez and El Paso have remained location at a pass in the mountains made it intricately connected. Originally, the border easier for Spanish expeditions en route to was nothing more than the water that flowed easterly in the Rio Grande. Crossing into Santa Fe, and the proximity to water (the Rio the United States required just a short wade Grande) was of particular value in the desert. or swim. Even a century after the Mexican“There is no iron-curtain American War ended, it appeared there was still no animosity or synthetic separations. In here. The only curtain 1955 an El Paso native wrote, “There is no between our cities is an iron-curtain here. The only occasional curtain between our cities is an occasional curtain of occasional curtain of dust.” dust, not man-made. Cooperative, friendly El Paso del Norte was Spanish territory relations exist between us and our esteemed Mexican neighbors.” until Mexican independence in 1822. The area Fifty years later, a physical iron curtain fell under Mexico’s control for a short period when, in 1848, the city once again changed appeared. In those fifty years El Paso became hands. This time to the U.S. as they won the a major point of geographical interest to Mexican-American War and set their southern the United States in the name of homeland security. With the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and border at the Rio Grande with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This made El Paso del rampant fear of future terrorism, government Norte the border town that it is today. The new organizations saw the border as a weakness in El Paso lies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in the westernmost corner of Texas.
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