As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, I looked back at the July 5, 1976, special bicentennial editions of the El Paso Times and the Herald Post.
The following article “turned back the clock” to examine the early days and organization of El Paso County, then the “largest county in the largest state of the greatest republic in the world.”
From the Bicentennial Edition of the Herald Post, July 5, 1976:
County Commissioners’ minutes prove there’s nothing new
Turn back the clock and attend a meeting of El Paso County Commissioners on Nov. 8, 1882. Minutes of the session are historical proof that there’s really nothing new under the sun.
Commissioners were solemnly considering conditions in the County Jail. They voted to issue an immediate order for improvement.
It said: “Be it ordered by the Commissioners Court, the Sheriff of El Paso County, is hereby ordered to furnish the prisoners in the jail with two meals per day, said order to take effect from this date.
“Said Sheriff be and is hereby authorized to get bed sacks and have them filled with corn shucks or any other cheap material so as to furnish the prisoners with the same, at least one bed sack for every two persons.”
And if that wasn’t a stern enough warning, on Nov. 13 of 1882, members of the court went to have a look for themselves. The report was duly entered in County records. It says” “Commissioners Court went to the jail and examined the food furnished by the Sheriff to the prisoners now under his custody; and the Court, after having examined the same, finds the same is good but not sufficient.
“It is therefore the order of the Court that the Sheriff be required to increase the quantity of food, and that hereafter he will furnish them with beans also, and food enough to satisfy said prisoners. And it is further ordered that the Sheriff be reminded of a previous order made by the Court, with regard to mattresses, so that he have the same made at once in accordance with said order.” (It didn’t take a federal judge in those days to get things moving.)
El Paso County has been in business since 1850, when a Commissioner could brag that it was the “largest county in the largest state of the greatest republic in the world.” It contained 9,450 square miles.
At the time El Paso contained a sizeable chunk of New Mexico and extended east to Pecos. But big as it was, El Paso County was small compared to the earlier county of Santa Fe of which it was a part. That county created by the Texas Legislature in 1848 out of Bexar County was really a whopper. It extended north from the Rio Grande to take in parts of Colorado and Wyoming. But New Mexico refused to recognize the claim and the county has been whittled down ever since.
On Jan 1, 1850, the Legislature set up the 11th Judicial District to comprise Santa Fe, Worth, El Paso and Presidio Counties and three days later approved organization of the counties.
Lawlessness prevailed, life and property were not safe
Their action came partly in response to a plea from Charles A. Hoppin of San Elizario. Hoppin had written the governor that lawlessness prevailed, that life and property were not safe, and that no copy of Texas law existed west of the Pecos.
An organization election was held in February of 1850 and Hoppin was elected chief justice of the El Paso County Court and Samuel W. Barker as county clerk.
In August a regular election was held and Archibald C. Hyde was elected chief justice and T.J. Miller county clerk. They were sworn in Aug. 20.
In the fall of 1850 Texas accepted a compromise and gave up its claim to much of New Mexico, about 125,000 square miles. Part of this was taken from El Paso County. Culberson and Hudspeth Counties were created out of El Paso County in 1911 and 1917 respectively.
Many of the early County records were lost during the Civil War when the area changed hands. But Deed Record A and B were taken to Mexico and later returned. They are most in Spanish.
The oldest deed in the El Paso book dates back to a transaction originally filed in 1784 at Socorro. It conveyed a house and tract of land to one Diego Varela in return for 30 female sheep, 10 mutton, a team of oxen, yokes and harness and a cow with calf.
San Elizario first county seat
The first county seat of El Paso County was at San Elizario. For a short time in 1854 it was at Magoffinsville but was back at San Elizario the same year and remained there until the Civil War. In the early 1830s San Elizario had a population of 1,500. Ysleta had 1,200 and Socorro 300. Court procedure was almost always in Spanish.
The town of El Paso had a population of about 300 and was not to become a city until 1873. During the Civil War the military controlled county government. After that the Republicans were dominant until a split in their ranks gave Democrats a chance to reassert themselves. During the 1870s, the Democrats elected many men to county and city offices, and after 1880 were in the driver’s seat.
Early in 1864 the county seat moved from San Elizario to Ysleta. With the coming of the railroad in 1881 the center of population shifted to El Paso. Ysletans began to worry that they would lose the county seat designation and pressed for a vote before El Paso could get any bigger. The vote went strongly in favor of El Paso at an election held Dec. 3, 1883. Angry Lower Valley residents charged the upstart city with bringing in illegal voters from Juárez to swell the vote for their side. (Claims about illegal voting got off to an early start in politics)
The first El Paso Courthouse was in rented rooms at 404 ½ South El Paso Street, and a temporary jail was a small adobe building in the rear. In 1884 a two-story brick house was occupied by the county. A fine new brick courthouse, to cost from $90,000 to 100,000, was approved in 1884, and it was built near the site of the present courthouse on San Antonio Street.
Britton and Long, Austin contractors, constructed the new courthouse with plans drawn by Alfred Giles of San Antonio. The contracting firm was accused of fraud but exonerated (more old news that sounds like new news). The courthouse finally cost taxpayers $150,000.
Need for sanitary facilities in public buildings
Let’s go back and see what those 1882 Commissioners are up to now. Still considering serious problems it would appear.
On Sept. 29 they faced up to the need for sanitary facilities in public buildings, namely the courthouse and the jail. Minutes of their meeting report: “That J.W. Angus hereby agrees to erect two privies, one for the courthouse and one for the jail — the same being 12 feet long by 7 feet wide; hole 6 feet by 12 with 1 partition running through the 12 foot length and one partition the 6 foot way, making four rooms with one hole in each room, the same to be enclosed with doors of worked stuff or one-inch panel doors; for which work when completed and accepted by the Commissioners Court, then the said Angus, will be entitled to receive the sum of $130.
At another session the court agreed that the county should pay $15 per month for the maintenance of a “destitute old woman living within the County of El Paso.”
And the high cost of government? Well, the Sheriff and his clerk received the generous sum of $200 per month between the two of them; the tax assessor got a percentage of all the taxes he could collect; teachers received $36 per month for dispensing wisdom to the young; and the County Judge was paid $100 a year for services to the schools, apparently a supplement to whatever his official salary was. The County Clerk got $5 per year “for clerical services.”
And that’s the way it was in El Paso in the early 1800s.
Trish Long may be reached at tlong@elpasotimes.com.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso County’s 1882 records echo today’s issues
Reporting by Trish Long, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
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