I don't think my New York friends believed me when I told them that time had stopped in El Paso sometime during the 1950s. Look at that bus!
Malls killed shopping downtown and there hadn't been any urban renewal because most tax dollars were spent in the more prosperous suburbs where voters lived. South El Paso, steps away from the Mexican border, fared worst.
Time was when Mary and I would have to drive downtown to see first-run movies. No more. Adult entertainment rescued some of the older theaters.
Ken used to take me to see children's matinees at the Pershing, named for the general who tried unsuccessfully to capture Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution. The movie names on the marquee helped me date these photos. I must have been in El Paso to celebrate Ken's 65th birthday.
Too bad the enormous murals--like a steer flanked by airplanes and a bucking bronco-- that adorned the backs of drive-in movie theaters already were gone. When we returned to El Paso from Europe in 1965 and moved into our new home in a still expanding suburban development, we briefly could watch movies playing at the Cactus Theatre through our dining room window. I couldn't hear Michael Parks in Bus Riley's Back in Town but his bare chest made it difficult to swallow! It had taken years of absence to realize that my hometown was a lot more than the cowtown from which I longed to escape. I drove around looking for interesting sites to document.
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| Paso del Norte Hotel Lobby |
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| El Paso Times |
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| Austin High School |
Signage--whether it be neon or mosaic--quickly weathered in El Paso's near-constant sunshine.
Once upon a time, I dreamed of retiring to El Paso and building an adobe home. The Folly put an end to the fantasy of spending my golden years in the desert.
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| Scenic Drive |
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