The Texas Revolution (1836) was not felt in the region as the area was never considered part of Texas until 1848. Given the blurry reclamations of the Texas Republic that wanted a clod of the Santa Fe trade, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo efficaciously made the settlements on the north bank of the river a formal American settlement, separate from Old El Paso del Norte on the Mexican side. The present Texas-New Mexico boundary placing El Paso on the Texas side was drawn in the Compromise of 1850.
El Paso County was established in March 1850 , The first county seat was San Elizario. The United States Senate fixed a boundary between Texas and New Mexico at the thirty-second 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 1854. Further west, a settlement on Coons’ Rancho called Franklin became the nucleus of the future El Paso, Texas. A year later pioneer Anson Mills completed his plan of the town, calling it El Paso.
During the Civil War, the Confederate cause was met with great support from Franklin residents until 1862 when the city was captured by the Union California Column. It was then headquarters for the 5th Regiment California Volunteer Infantry until December 1864.
The Towns population began to grow after the war was concluded. In 1873 El Paso was incorporated and encompassed the small area communities that had developed along the river. With the arrival of the Southern Pacific, Texas and Pacific and the Topeka, Atchison and Santa Fe railroads in 1881, the population boomed to 10,000 by the 1890 census attracting newcomers ranging from businessmen and priests, to gunfighters and prostitutes. El Paso became a boomtown and because of it’s lawlessness it became a “Six Shooter Capital”. Prostitution and play flourished until World War I, when the Department of the Army pressured El Paso authorities to crack down on vice (thus benefiting vice in neighboring Ciudad Juárez).
Mining and other industries gradually developed in the area. The 1920s and 1930s saw the emergence of major business development in the city partially enabled by Prohibition era bootlegging. The Depression era hit the city hard and the population declined through the end of World War II. Following the war, military expansion in the area as well as oil discoveries in the Permian Basin (North America) helped to cause rapid economic expansion in the mid 1900s. Copper smelting, oil purification, and the proliferation of low wage industries (particularly garment making) led the city’s growth. The expansion slowed again in the 1960s but the city has continued to grow in large part because of the increased importance of trade with Mexico.
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