Tornillo

Tornillo's farmland was the last in the El Paso valley approved for the Rio Grande Irrigation Project, organized after Elephant Butte Dam was finished in 1916. Large-scale cotton followed in 1918 with a 600-acre field and a two-stand gin. Cotton outlasted the town's bad years: in 1990 the largest cotton gin in Texas ran at Tornillo, ginning 90 percent of the valley's crop. Since 1970 pecans have run a close second, with chile, alfalfa and onions grown on a smaller scale.

What the plaque says

Tornillo The town of Tornillo derives its name from the Spanish word for screw-bean bush, a hardy firewood once prevalent in the area. Efforts to establish this site as a major agricultural center began when the United States Reclamation Service announced plans to build dam and reservoir projects on the Rio Grande. The Tornillo Townsite Company, founded by an El Paso investment firm, mapped the townsite in 1909, and the Tornillo Post Office was established the same year. After the Elephant Butte project north of El Paso was completed, agricultural speculation in the area increased. In about 1917, three leading agriculturists, J.B. Dale, Will T. Owen, and Louis J. Ivey, planted 600 acres of cotton in Tornillo. They harvested a successful crop and built the town's first cotton gin. Other farmers and businessmen, attracted by their success, settled here and by the late 1920s, Tornillo boasted several corporations, packing plants, and a cattle feeding operation, as well as several stores and a modern school system. The town's economy suffered in the Great Depression of the 1930s and never fully revived. Urban growth in nearby El Paso contributed to the decline of the settlement. Tornillo stands today as a symbol of early commercial development in El Paso County. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Elizario Historic District — 15 mi
  A plaza of adobe buildings at the end of the El Paso Mission Trail: an 1877 chapel, Gregorio Garcia's portaled house and the old county jail of Billy the Kid legend.
• Socorro Mission (Nuestra Senora de la Limpia Concepcion del Socorro) — 19 mi
  Socorro's adobe church on the El Paso Mission Trail, with walls five feet thick, carved vigas from an older church and a statue of Saint Michael said to have chosen the town.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 21 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.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 22 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.

More markers nearby

• Tornillo-Guadalupe (Fabens-Caseta) Bridge — 3.2 mi
• San Elizario — 15 mi
• Juan de Onate Expedition - 1598 — 15 mi
• Espejo-Beltran Expedition - 1582-1583 — 15 mi