El Paso is situated on the Rio Grande River, in the extreme west corner
of Texas, within a mile of that river, which forms the boundary line
between Texas and Mexico, and very near to New Mexico on the north and
on the west.
The altitude is 3,700 feet and the climate is mild, pleasant and
healthful. El Paso was then a small adobe hamlet of about three hundred
inhabitants, more than three-fourths of whom were Mexicans. Nearly all
that portion of the village or “ranch” south of San Antonio and San
Francisco streets was then cultivated in vineyards, fruit trees, fields
of wheat and corn and gardens, for at that time and for years later
there was an abundance of water in the Rio Grande all the year round,
and El Paso was checkered with acequis (irrigation ditches).
At the head of El Paso street, near the little plaza, where the main
acequia ran, there were several large ash and cottonwood trees, in the
shade of which was a little market where fruit, and vegetables, and
fowls, and mutton, and venison, and other articles were sold. We had no
regular meat market.
To one of these trees some enterprising citizen had nailed a plank,
which for years served as a bulletin board where people were wont to
tack signed manuscripts giving their opinions of each other. Here Mrs.
Gillock, who kept the hotel where the Mills building now stands,
notified the “Publick” when her boarders refused to pay their bills, and
here, in 1859, I saw my brother Anson nail the information that three
certain citizens were liars, etc., and here, just ten years later, I
gave the same information regarding B. F. Williams. Foolish? Perhaps.
The flouring mill of Simeon Hart, about a mile above the village, was
the chief individual industrial enterprise in the valley, and ground the
entire wheat crop from both sides of the river, and supplied flour to
all the people and the military posts.
The proprietor, a man of wealth and influence, staked all and lost all
in the Confederate cause.
The dam which supplied water to this mill had been constructed two
hundred years ago by the people of the Mexican side of the river, who
kept it in repair for all these years without asking any assistance from
the people of the Texas side, although they generously divided the water
with us.
The patience and industry displayed by this people in repairing and
rebuilding this dam, when washed away by annual floods, can only be
compared to that of beavers.
The Texas bank of the Rio Grande was then (1858) only a short distance
south of where the Santa Fe depot now stands, but just how far south it
is impossible for me or any one else, I believe, to tell, though I have
been often asked to testify as to where the river bed was then, and in
later years. It found its present bed more or less gradually by erosion
and revulsion during these years, and left very few landmarks.
The bed of the river was narrower then than now, and many cottonwood
trees grew upon each bank.
At the end of El Paso street was the ferry, where pedestrians crossed in
small canoes, and vehicles and wagon trains in larger boats.
Sometimes, when the spring floods came, it was impossible for any one to
cross for several days.
Be it remembered there was not a railroad or telegraph station within a
thousand miles of us. The business houses, with one exception, were on
El Paso street, and around the little plaza. My brother Anson and I each
built homes at El Paso before the war, he on San Francisco and I on San
Antonio street. The postoffice was on the west side of El Paso street,
facing the head of San Antonio street, and in this same large room there
was also a whiskey saloon, a billiard table, and several gambling
tables. “Uncle Ben” Dowell was postmaster. This room and the street in
front of it were the favorite shooting grounds of the sporting men, and
others, and here took place many bloody encounters, some of which may be
treated of in these idle writings. The graveyard was convenient, being
on one of the hills on what is now known as “Sunset Heights.” At one
time there were more people buried there who had died by violence than
from all other causes. When I state that the writer of these pages
sometimes read the burial service there over the remains of our departed
countrymen, it may be imagined how sadly we were in need of spiritual
guidance. Every citizen, whatever his age or calling, habitually carried
a six-shooter at his belt, and slept with it under his pillow. I
remember a friend, Johnnie Evans, saying to me once, when I was so
thoughtless as to start down street without one: “Buckle it on, Mills;
we don’t often need ’em, but when we do need ’em, we need ’em—Oh, God!”
Every man’s horse, or team, and arms were the best his purse could buy,
and my white saddle horse, that carried me for ten years, was surely a
dandy. Sometimes, when I have journeyed to Las Cruces or Mesilla, fifty
miles, in my buggy, I have turned this animal loose, saddled and
bridled, and he has followed me the whole distance, as a dog follows his
master. I have sometimes been vexed with the best of my human friends,
but “Blanco” never disappointed me in anything.
The Mexican population, now nearly all passed away by death or removal,
were of a much better class than those who came in later with the advent
of the railroads, to sell their labor—and their votes. It is but just to
say, however, that votes cannot be sold unless there be purchasers, and
that the purchasers have ever been of my own race.
The villages below El Paso were more prosperous then than now, because
their population is agricultural and the lack of water in the river in
recent times has caused great discouragement and even distress. The same
was true of Juarez, Mexico, just opposite El Paso, then called Paso del
Norte.
The county seat was first at San Elezario, twenty-two miles below El
Paso, with fifteen hundred population, and later at Ysleta, with twelve
hundred population (nearly all Mexicans), and still later at El Paso.
Court proceedings and arguments to juries and political speeches were
then made in the Spanish language.
Fort Bliss, garrisoned by regular United States troops, situated at the
place now called East El Paso, was considered by army officers and their
families as one of the most desirable posts in the whole country, and
several officers who subsequently held very high rank during the Civil
War had been stationed there. There was another fort, called Quitman,
seventy miles below El Paso, on the river, and a chain of military posts
from there to San Antonio. The nearest posts in New Mexico were Fort
Fillmore, forty miles to the north, near Las Cruces, and Fort Craig, one
hundred miles still further north toward Santa Fe.
As to hunting, there were at that time comparatively plenty of wild
deer, turkeys, wild geese, ducks and mountain quail on the mountains and
in the valley, and I got my share of them.
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