1963: Courschesne Sees EP Grow Up

August 12, 1963

The Upper Valley – including what is now the Country Club area – was called “El Bosque” in 1887, and citizens of El Paso would ride out there in wagons to chop firewood from the scrubby trees.

That was the year Alfred Courschesne came to El Paso.

His son, Tom, who was born six years after his arrival, remembers when the Upper Valley Country Club section was nothing but a vast expanse of weeds, trees and bushes. The whole area was valued at probably less than $10 an acre.

Tom Courschesne, nearing 70 was born in the adobe home his father built on the banks of the Rio Grande.

Alfred Courschesne came originally from Canada – his parents were from France – and worked in the textile mills in Lowell, Mass., for a time. He joined the Northern Army during the Civil War as a drummer boy and after the war, he went to Chicago.

In Chicago, he went to work in the Field-Leiter department store, which was a forerunner of the present Marshall-Field organization.

“My dad got the urge to come West, like so many others, and he came to Leadville, Colo., which at the time was a mining boom town,” Tom Courschesne recalled.

Alfred went into the mine supply business there, and became acquainted with Robert Towne, who was one of the original owner of El Paso Smelting Works, the firm which eventually became part of American Smelting and Refining Co.

Towne induced Alfred Courschesne to come to El Paso, and start a plant which would furnish limestone to the smelter from natural deposits in the Upper Valley.

Towne helped Alfred Courschesne obtain some 900 acres of land about four miles west of the central section of old El Paso. Thus, the Courschesne family got its start in the city.

Alfred Courschesne was one of the founders of Southwestern Portland Cement Co., which was built on the 900 acres he owned. Carl Leonardt was the firm’s fist president, and the two vice presidents in El Paso were Courschesne and Felix Martinez.

The old Courschesne home, and a dairy ranch, were built along the river near the plant, according to Tom Courschesne.

“Nothing is left of the home or the dairy today,” he explained. One of the few remnants of that earlier time is a rock abutment which once supported a railroad bridge that was razed just after the turn of the century.

“There was no County road to the area when I was a youngster,” Courschesne recalled. “The trail came from the South side of the river, and wagons would follow the river bed when it was dry.” The river bed was the only existing route to Las Cruces for a long time.

When the Rio Grande was high, the Upper Valley was virtually isolated, except for a rough road built by Alfred Courschesne atop the mesa behind the cement plant.

Mexican revolutionaries did not bother the Courschesne family. The one episode Tom Courschesne best recalls came about when he and two friends decided to visit the camp of Francisco Madero to take pictures. He said he and his buddies were taken into custody and held briefly.

The story of the railroads and their movement west is also recalled by Tom Courschesne. He said the Southern Pacific and the old El Paso and Southwestern were both “rough and ready” outfits at the time, and were about to converge at the Upper Valley point where the two trestles cross the highway and river.

The river tended to flood occasionally, and when it did, the Courschesne family would rush to the barns and the dairy and lead the cows to high ground.

“We had no trouble at the hose, although the water would come up pretty close.”

There was no Elephant Butte dam to control the river waters, but when it was built, it was the first big project for Southwestern Portland Cement Co.

Tom Courschesne also recalls that R.E. McKee built the Courschesne School, which is about 40 years old, and no longer used.

He recalls Hart’s Mill, and Old Ft. Bliss, and says the buildings still standing there were the officer’s quarters.

Tom Courschesne’s recollections of Downtown El Paso include the “sea of mud” that was Mils Street near the Sheldon Block, which later was the Sheldon Hotel and now is the site of the Hilton Hotel.

“In the month of August, when the rains came, people had to wade across on some waling stones,” Tom Courschesne remembered.

The old home was demolished when Doniphan drive was widened and improved in about 1958, but Tom Courschesne carries on the family business.

The firm no longer crushes rock and stone for the smelter, but is in the “slag” business, an operation that started about 24 years ago. The firm produces ballast for railroad roadbeds and for rockwool insulation.

The Courschesne family is remembered in El Paso. Of course, the school which bears the family name is no longer in use, but the bridge that crosses the river to Anapra, N.M. is called Courschesne Bridge, Alfred Courschesne was involved in numerous early day business ventures and civic activities in El Paso. The family business is one of the 10 oldest in El Paso.

Comments

[Pam]

Thanks for posting an interesting article. Tom Courchesne was my uncle.

[Trish Long]

Thanks Pam. Sound like he had an interesting life.

[M R Montoya]

The article was great. My Grandfather used to tell me stories about the history of the area. I grew up in Courchesne Road. My Grandfather was one the cement company employees that took advantage of buying land and building when Mr. Courchesne offered it. I was in Courchesne School for Pre-School, Kindergarten, and First Grade then we had to tranfer to EB Jones. By the way Courchesne Rd still is a residential area that is alive and well. I hope the integrity for the entire area is preserved to include the school. There is much history there.

[pam]

Trish, He did have an interesting life. El Paso was a very rustic area then and he was a good man but not a saint.