Travelogue: El Paso
One night in America’s Texas city near the Mexico border
I recently found myself in an old American city on the border with Mexico. Having investigated and pre-booked a room at the Hotel Paso Del Norte, I checked in and was impressed. I will not hesitate to return.
El Paso, Texas, is a strangely quiet city, which, during my brief stay, I found enchanting. It’s a poor city surrounded by low mountains. This is where Pancho Villa was once granted refuge with other Mexican revolutionaries and there remains an air of hushed lawlessness amid Mexican drug cartels, sly border deals, double crosses and the tension of being located less than a mile from Juarez, Mexico. All of this—Juarez, the border, El Paso’s skyline, the Franklin Mountains—is visible from the rooftop.
It’s on the 10th floor rooftop where you’ll find a swimming pool and a rooftop bar, lounge and dance floor. Savor a cocktail by the pool under the stars and dance in the Southwestern sun. This rooftop place, El Mirador, is the best part of the Hotel Paso Del Norte. Down in the lobby, there’s a cigar lounge, business center, steakhouse (shuttered due to the labor shortage) and a circular bar curving underneath a 25-foot stained glass dome (pictured above). The hotel’s in the heart of downtown El Paso.
The 351-room landmark hotel was designed by architect Henry Trost, who designed dozens of prominent El Paso banks, hotels and residences. Trost spent over a million dollars, laying the foundation in steel and concrete, building the walls in St. Louis buff brick trimmed with white terra cotta, adding a 10th story ballroom in 1922. Other features include wood sashes, concrete window sills and lobby walls made of salmon-colored scagliola, a marble-like composite, using gypsum from New Mexico.
The 24-hour fitness room for hotel guests also affords a view. The hotel room was perfectly appointed. Staff was attentive, though dining staff was as slow and stubborn as a burro. Step outside the Hotel Paso Del Norte, which made its debut on Thanksgiving in 1912, and you’re within walking distance of the city’s convention center, museums and historic San Jacinto Plaza. It’s also close to Spanish missions, shops, hiking, festivals and the University of Texas at El Paso.