Hotel Paso Del Norte

Zach White reached El Paso in October 1880 by stagecoach with $10,000 sewn into his vest. He had built the first waterworks in Austin, Dallas and Waco. Here he started the town's first brick, gas and electric companies, its mule-drawn streetcars and the first bridges to Ciudad Juárez. He bought thousands of acres in the upper valley, raised cotton and pushed for Elephant Butte Dam. In 1912 he built this hotel, long a showplace of the Southwest, with a Tiffany dome over its lobby.

What the plaque says

Hotel Paso Del Norte This brick and terra cotta structure was the "dream hotel" of early El Paso businessman and promoter Zach White. White came to the town in 1881 and recognized El Paso's great potential as a gateway to Mexico. He worked hard to help the city realize that potential by building the Santa Fe International Bridge and an early streetcar line, as well as introducing electric street lights and natural gas. His most visible contribution to the growing community, however, was the ten-story Hotel Paso Del Norte, which was completed in 1912. Designed by the noted El Paso architectural firm of Trost and Trost, the structure was engineered to be fireproof and was modeled after buildings that had survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Throughout its history, Hotel Paso Del Norte has served travelers and tourists, has been an El Paso social center, and has been used as a headquarters for cattle trading ranchers. Numerous dignitaries from both the United States and Mexico have been guests here over the years. A reflection of an early twentieth-century belief in the community's future growth and development, Hotel Paso Del Norte stands as an important part of El Paso's commercial history. 1985

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 0.8 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 — 2.1 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

• Felix Martinez — steps away
• Pioneer Plaza — steps away
• This Block was the Site of the Stage Station — steps away
• El Camino Real (The King's Highway) — steps away