09/19/2009
Dear Trish: I have asked several local "historians" a question, but no one "knows" so hope you can find it. Many of our high and low temperature records were established back in the 1800s. Where in the world was the official temperature reading taken before the current location at the El Paso International Airport? Did the location change several times? Most of these very old temp records were the low temperatures. Good luck!! -- Mary
Good question, Mary. Instead of scouring the archives for this one, I went straight to the source: Tim Brice, with the National Weather Service office in Santa Teresa. And, as it turns out, there isn't one answer to your question; there are lots.
Brice says the first record of the El Paso Weather Bureau office is Nov. 6, 1877, when it was located at a site on San Francisco Street, between Santa Fe and El Paso streets. On Aug. 12, 1880, the bureau moved one door east.
On Nov. 1, 1881, records show the office was at a corner of San Francisco and Santa Fe streets. One year later, the bureau moved to the State National Bank Building, one door west of the southwest corner of San Antonio and Oregon.
On April 1, 1882, the office was located at the Sheldon Hotel, the southwest corner of St. Louis (now Mills) and Oregon Streets. On Aug. 8, 1894, the bureau was in the Government Building, at the southeast corner of St. Louis and Oregon. Dec. 29, 1907, at the El Paso & Southwestern Building on the southeast corner of Stanton and Franklin. July 1, 1925, at the Mills Building, on the northwest corner of Oregon and Mills. Then at the U.S. Court House, at the northeast corner of San Antonio and Kansas.
The thermometers have their own history. Brice said the first mention of them comes from a note about the State National Bank location. The note says the temperatures registered at that site were too high in the early years because of the exposure of the thermometers on the northwest wall of the building.
The next time the Weather Service records mention the location of the thermometers is in a note about a thermometer shelter and rain gauges in San Jacinto Plaza.
So does that explain the lower lows? Brice says it might.
"As you can see, for a good part of the time the early weather readings were taken in and in the neighborhood around San Jacinto Plaza," Brice wrote in an e-mail. "Now since the plaza area is down in the river valley there are some daily cold records that will be tough to beat. Cold air sinks and tries to get to the lowest point since it is denser than warmer air. Think of the air like water (both are fluids); water always tries to go down hill. Cold air is the same. So on cold, clear mornings, it will be several degrees cooler in the river valley as opposed to other parts of El Paso. Of course, our all-time cold temperature of -8 (brrr) occurred on January 8, 1962."
The airport became the official site for temperature readings on Dec. 14, 1942. The readings are still taken there, even though the National Weather Service office moved to Santa Teresa in 1996.
TALES FROM THE MORGUE
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• If you want to know about El Paso's history, send Trish an email at [email protected] or comment at her blog by visiting elpasotimes.com/blogs
Trish Long is the El Paso Times' archivist and spends her time in the morgue, where the newspaper keeps its old clippings and photos. She shares some of this history in her blog, Tales From The Morgue.
St. Louis = Mills. St. Louis Avenue was renamed Mills Avenue, after Anson Mills, long ago. So that location that was mentioned at the southeast corner of St. Louis and Oregon is now at Mills and Oregon. 100 East Mills?
Posted by: Mark | February 06, 2011 at 12:42 PM