March 9, 1952
Bob Chapman
These were the days when Indians whooped it up in this area, the overland stage rattled into the village and Juan Maria Ponce de Leon moved in and set up his sprawling adobe ranch headquarters, extending all the way from the north side of Pioneer Plaza to Main Street.
These are the scenes, incidents, atmosphere and color that make up the background of the old Central Hotel, first in the line of El Paso’s famous hotels of yesteryears.
Time when Kingston, N.M., was a lively flourishing and prosperous mining camp also is a part of the story.
The Central, confused even by the few remaining old-timers with the Grand Central, which was on the present Mills Building site and whose frontage was on Oregon Street, stood where now is the White House Department Store, McCoy Hotel and Plaza Theater.
The Grand Central was destroyed by fire on Feb. 11, 1892. A fire, July 4, 1896, wiped out the Central.
REMEMBERS FIRE – Deputy Constable Fred Delgado, who came here from Fort Davis, Texas, in 1884, learned to be a tailor and, in 1892, was working for Jesus Teran, who had a tailor shop on the ground floor of the Central, remembered the fire but not is date. He recalled he was burned trying to save the tailor shop sign.
Delgado, who was born in Presidio, Texas, was a member of El Paso Police Department some 51 years ago.
A portion of the Ponce de Leon ranch house, built in 1827, served as a apart and foundation for the Central Hotel, which, in the beginning, was a one-story affair. After the first Southern Pacific passenger train puffed into El Paso in 1881, a second story was added to the hotel. This was built of redwood lumber shipped in from California.
In an issue of The El Paso Times, Feb.6, 1937, in a column, whose heading was “Looking Back,” there is a story dated Dec. 5, 1893, about Mrs. Elizabeth Gillock, who at the age of 94, died the preceding day in her home in Ysleta, Lower Valley.
FIRST HOTEL – This story recited that Mrs. Gillock kept the first hotel in El Paso and that hotel was the old Central, which was where the Plaza Theater now stands. The story also said it was a part of the Ponce de Leon ranch house.
Mrs. Gillock, according to this story, posted all delinquent accounts on a tree in Little Plaza (Pioneer Plaza). This, doubtless, was her way of publicizing guests who owed her money.
Without giving her name, the story quotes a woman who came here in 1873 to this effect: “Mrs. Gillock owned the hotel and land around it. Her trade was gone with the 49ers, so she lived in the rambling hotel all alone. It was of adobe and almost in ruins. When the railroads came she sold her property for $17,000, I think.”
H. Y. Ellis, pioneer citizen, who came here in 1890 from Atlanta, Ga., with his father, Jesse M. Ellis, remembered the Central and the old red brick County Courthouse, scene of outstanding social events in those early days. Ellis said he attended many swanky dancing parties in that ancient structure.
FATHER WAS JP – His father was elected a justice of the peace in 1899 and served for four years. His court room was in the Bronson Block, present site of the American Furniture Co. building.
Ellis and his father slept in a room adjoining the court room. Ellis recalled lawyers had most of the offices in the building, R. C. Walshe being one.
Ellis joined El Paso Volunteer Firemen’s Association in 1901. He is the current secretary, Ben Levy, another pioneer, is president.
Jake Miller, president of the White House Department Store, who came here in 1895, remembered the old Central and he fixed the date of the fire that destroyed it – July 4, 1896.
“I remembered that because there were a lot of fireworks exploding throughout the downtown area, as well as in the residential sections,” Miller said.
NEWELLS ARRIVE – Enter now by a circuitous route Mr. and Mrs. George W. Newell, whose hometime, before they traveled west, was St. Louis, Mo. They landed first in Santa Fe, N.M. Mr. Newell was a hardware merchant and he opened a store there, operating this for two years.
The Newells had heard of increasing activities in the Kingston mining camp. So, the Santa Fe store was sold and they journeyed there.
Mrs. Newell, now past 82, said the same rock hotel where they first stayed, is still standing and carrying on.
“It was such a nice place,” she said.
Mr. Newell set up a hardware store, which he ran fro about two years. Mrs. Newell said he sold out just in time, because the bottom of the mining business started falling out.
“I hear this is picking up again,” Mrs. Newell said. “I am glad. That is such a beautiful spot.”
RODE IN STAGE COACH – Milton, the Newell’s son born in Kingston, was 5-months old, when the stage coach drawn by four mules, pulled up and stopped in front of the rock hotel where the family was waiting for it. At Hillsboro, N.M., they changed into another stage coach, also pulled by four mules and jolted along to a railway station. Mrs. Newell could not recall the name.
It was 11 p.m. on a December night in 1892 when the train arrived in El Paso. Mrs. Newell said they stepped out of the train into a bitter cold, blinding snow storm. They got into a hack and started the hunt for a hotel room. It was a discouraging procedure.
There was an opera company in town, booked for the old Myar Opera House, and so hotels, in addition to their regular run of guests, had to take care of members of the opera cast.
Swirling snow flakes had grown larger and thicker by the time the hack halted at the Vendome Hotel, then on the present site of Hotel Cortez. Mr. Newell got out, went inside and returned with the dismal report the hotel was filled to overflowing.
BABY WON MANAGER – “We can’t keep this baby out in this bitter weather,” Mrs. Newell said. “Let me try and see what I can do about a place to stay.”
Mrs. Newell took Milton inside. “Milton was such a happy, friendly baby,” Mrs. Newell said. “When he gooed and gurgled at the manager, he said for us to come in, he would find a room.”
Mrs. Newell could not remember the name of this manager, but she said he gave them his room and slept on a pallet in the parlor. (Parlor in those days. Not lobby.)
After being here several days, Mrs. Newell, taking Milton, went to St. Louis to visit her mother for three months. When she returned, Mr. Newell and a Mr. Gaston (initials not available) were in the grocery business on South El Paso Street. Mr. Newell was a hardware man. He didn’t like selling groceries.
They sold the place and bought the lease on the hotel in the Center Block building, cornering on Pioneer Plaza and San Francisco Street. It was a three-story structure then. The hotel part was on the second and third floors. Mrs. Newell said it was beautifully furnished. In the corner, where now is one of the Oasis café, was a grocery store owned by Stuart and McNair. The store was sold to Charley Slack, E. A. Stuart moved to California and later organized the Carnation Milk Company.
PART OF THEATER – The present two-story building is part of the Plaza Theater property. Main entrance to the hotel was on San Francisco Street. The old Central Hotel backed up against the rear entrance, which then was in the vicinity of the north end of the Mills Restaurant and Confectionery.
Mrs. Newell recalled there was a Chinese restaurant at the east end of the Central. She remembered vividly the fire that left the Central a smoldering ruin, because volunteer fire fighters dragged hose through her hotel to battle the blaze from there. In their wake was considerably damaged furniture, fixtures and furnishings, she said.
The Newells had operated the hotel for about nine years when the building was sold. The third story was removed. Why, Mrs. Newell said she didn’t know and couldn’t guess.
BUILT HOME – Mr. Newell had bought property in the 100 block on West Franklin Street and built a home into which the family moved. Two other dwellings were added and a commercial garage at the corner of Franklin and North El Paso Street. Mrs. Newell lives in the dwelling at 110 West Franklin Street.
Milton, who gooed and gurgled the manager of the Vendome out of a room for his father and mother on that snowy, wintry December night in 1892, graduated in 1917 from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and now is a prominent electrical engineer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
His sister, Mrs. Roy Davis, 1020 Prospect Avenue, studied and is an expert on antiques, having her shop in her home. Mr. Davis, who was in the local Southern Pacific ticket office for years before he retired, is becoming proficient in this line. Their son, Dr. Roy Davis, Jr., Mrs. Newell’s only grandchild, is a graduate of the Medical School of the University of Texas, and is now on the staff of a Children’s orthopedic hospital in Miami, Fla.
George Newell, youngest Newell son, an accomplished musician and photographer, lives in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Mr. Newell, who was an active Mason, as well as a local pioneer hotel man, died here on March 19, 1936.
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