El Paso

The city's name took years to settle. By late 1849 a settlement called Franklin had grown on Coons' Rancho, named for the merchant Benjamin Franklin Coons, the nucleus of the future city. In 1859 Anson Mills finished his plat of El Paso, a name confused with El Paso del Norte across the river until that town became Ciudad Juárez in 1888. Meanwhile El Paso County was created in March 1850 with San Elizario as its seat, and the U.S. Senate fixed the boundary with New Mexico at the thirty-second parallel, largely ignoring history and topography.

What the plaque says

El Paso Largest U.S. city on the Mexican border. Named for the mountain pass. Historic gateway for Indians, priests, gold-seekers, traders, stages. Federal troops occupied this area longer than any other in Texas during the Civil War. Agricultural, industrial and military center. Texas Western College, Spanish missions. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Franklin Mountains State Park — 6.0 mi
  Almost 27,000 acres of desert mountains inside El Paso, with the oldest rocks in Texas, more than 100 miles of trail and campsites in the Tom Mays Unit.
• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 16 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 — 17 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.
• Mesilla Plaza — 24 mi
  A plaza laid out in 1848 by people who meant to stay in Mexico, American six years later, a stage stop and Civil War headquarters, and scene of a deadly political riot in 1871.

More markers nearby

• Oñate's Route / El Camino Real — 1.7 mi
• Brazito Battlefield — 1.7 mi
• Butterfield Trail / Espejo's Expedition — 1.7 mi
• Fusselman Canyon — 9.0 mi