El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Building

In Texas the line ran as a company of its own. The El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Company of Texas was chartered on June 6, 1902, with $2 million in capital and a business office in El Paso; its first directors included El Pasoans Charles R. Morehead and Millard Patterson and New Yorkers James Douglas and William E. Dodge. It bought the El Paso Terminal Company in February 1903 and opened on March 1, running to the state line at the center of a 1,692-foot Rio Grande bridge. It was merged into the Southern Pacific on November 1, 1961.

What the plaque says

El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Building Begun in Arizona in 1888, the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad completed its track to El Paso in 1902. The city became headquarters for the company's operations throughout the southwest and railroad shops were built here. In 1906 this seven-story office building was constructed for the railroad. The line was operating more than 1,200 miles of track when it was acquired by the Southern Pacific system in 1924. Owned by the Southern Pacific until 1969, this building reflects the importance of El Paso as a major rail center. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 0.6 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Chamizal National Memorial — 2.0 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 11 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 11 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.

More markers nearby

• El Paso County, C.S.A. — steps away
• San Jacinto Plaza — steps away
• El Camino Real (The King's Highway) — steps away
• El Paso's Chinese Community — steps away