El Paso, Texas

How El Paso is governed

Form of government not yet listed.

1 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.

• Mayor

  Executive

  • Renard Johnson per Wikidata

  The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.

  • City Manager / Administrator

    Executive

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    The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).

    • Police Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the police department.

    • Fire Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the fire and emergency services department.

    • Public Works Director

      Administration & departments

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      Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.

    • Finance Director

      Administration & departments

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      The budget, taxes, and city accounts.

    • Planning & Zoning Director

      Administration & departments

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      Land use, zoning, building permits.

    • Parks & Recreation Director

      Administration & departments

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      Parks, programs, and public facilities.

• City Council

  Legislative

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  The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.

  • City Clerk

    Administration & departments

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    Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.

  • City Attorney

    Administration & departments

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    The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.

  • Boards & Commissions

    Legislative

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    Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.

• Municipal Court

  Judicial

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  Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.

  • Municipal Judge

    Judicial

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    Presides over the municipal court.

Website

elpasotexas.gov

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Population over time

From 649,121 in 2010 to 678,815 in 2020 (+4.6%).

History

Early years

The El Paso region has had human settlement for thousands of years, as evidenced by Folsom points from hunter-gatherers found at Hueco Tanks. This suggests 10,000 to 12,000 years of human habitation. The earliest known cultures in the region were maize farmers. When the Spanish arrived, the Manso, Suma, and Jumano tribes populated the area. These were subsequently incorporated into the mestizo culture, along with immigrants from central Mexico, captives from Comanchería, and genízaros of various ethnic groups. The Mescalero Apache were also present.

The Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition trekked through present-day El Paso and forded the Rio Grande where they visited the land that is present-day New Mexico in 1581–1582. The expedition was led by Francisco Sánchez, called "El Chamuscado", and Fray Agustín Rodríguez, the first Spaniards known to have walked along the Rio Grande and visited the Pueblo Indians since Francisco Vásquez de Coronado 40 years earlier. Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate was born in 1550 in Zacatecas, Zacatecas, Mexico, and was the first New Spain (Mexico) explorer known to have rested and stayed 10 days by the Rio Grande near El Paso, in 1598, celebrating a Thanksgiving Mass there on April 30, 1598. Four survivors of the Narváez expedition, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and an enslaved native of Morocco, Estevanico, are thought to have crossed the Rio Grande into present-day Mexico about 75 miles south of El Paso in 1535. El Paso del Norte (present-day Ciudad Juárez) was founded on the south bank of the Río Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande), in 1659 by Fray Garcia de San Francisco. In 1680, the small village of El Paso became the temporary base for Spanish governance of the territory of New Mexico as a result of the Pueblo Revolt, until 1692, when Santa Fe was reconquered and once again became the capital.

The Texas Revolution (1836) was generally not felt in the region, as the American population was small, not more than 10% of the population. However, the region was claimed by Texas as part of the treaty signed with Mexico and numerous attempts were made by Texas to bolster these claims, but the villages that consisted of what is now El Paso and the surrounding area remained essentially a self-governed community with both representatives of the Mexican and Texan governments negotiating for control until Texas, having become a U.S. state in 1845, irrevocably took control in 1846. During this interregnum, 1836–1848, Americans nonetheless continued to settle the region. As early as the mid-1840s, alongside long extant Hispanic settlements such as the Rancho de Juan María Ponce de León, Anglo-American settlers such as Simeon Hart and Hugh Stephenson had established thriving communities of American settlers owing allegiance to Texas. Stephenson, who had married into the local Hispanic aristocracy, established the Rancho de San José de la Concordia, which became the nucleus of Anglo-American and Hispanic settlement within the limits of modern-day El Paso, in 1844: the Republic of Texas, which claimed the area, wanted a chunk of the Santa Fe trade. During the Mexican–American War, the Battle of El Bracito was fought nearby on Christmas Day, 1846. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo effectively made the settlements on the north bank of the river part of the US, separate from Old El Paso del Norte on the Mexican side. The present New Mexico–Texas boundary placing El Paso on the Texas side was drawn in the Compromise of 1850.

El Paso remained the largest settlement in New Mexico as part of the Republic of Mexico until its cession to the U.S. in 1848, when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo specified the border was to run north of El Paso De Norte around the Ciudad Juárez Cathedral which became part of the state of Chihuahua.

El Paso County was established in March 1850, with San Elizario as the first county seat. The United States Senate fixed a boundary between Texas and New Mexico at the 32nd parallel, thus largely ignoring history and topography. A military post called the "Post opposite El Paso" (meaning opposite El Paso del Norte, across the Rio Grande) was established in 1849 on Coons' Rancho beside the settlement of Franklin, which became the nucleus of the future El Paso, Texas; after the army left in 1851, the rancho went into default and was repossessed; in 1852, a post office was established on the rancho bearing the name El Paso as an example of cross-border town naming until El Paso del Norte was renamed Juarez in 1888. After changing hands twice more, the El Paso company was set up in 1859 and bought the property, hiring Anson Mills to survey and lay out the town, thus forming the current street plan of downtown El Paso.

In Beyond the Mississippi (1867), Albert D. Richardson, traveling to California via coach, described El Paso as he found it in late 1859:

"The Texan town of El Paso had four hundred inhabitants, chiefly Mexicans. Its businessmen were Americans, but Spanish was the prevailing language. All the features were Mexican: low, flat adobe buildings, shading cottonwoods under which dusky, smoking women and swarthy children sold fruit, vegetables, and bread; habitual gambling universal, from the boys' game of pitching quartillas (three-cent coins) to the great saloons where huge piles of silver dollars were staked at monte. In this little village, a hundred thousand dollars often changed hands in a single night through the potent agencies of Monte and poker. There were only two or three American ladies, and most of the whites kept Mexican mistresses. All goods were brought on wagons from the Gulf of Mexico and sold at an advance of three or four hundred percent on Eastern prices.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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