March 14, 1990
Monica Krausse
El Paso Times
To gold-hungry forty-niners who had just walked across West Texas, “El Passo” was heaven on earth – a place full of cool breezes, pretty girls, fruit trees and wine.
But the quiet citizens of El Paso del Norte were less than delighted by their thousands of unexpected visitors. The horde of travelers was about to eat the Pasenos out of house and home.
The forty-niners were part of the California Gold Rush of 1849. Many of them came from the South, sailed to Corpus Christi, Texas, and then set out west on land.
The Rio Grande was about halfway to California, so it was a natural stopping place. A few tiny U.S. settlements were on the east bank, and the city of El Paso del Norte, which later would be named Juarez, was on the west bank.
C.C. Cox, one of the forty-niners, reached El Paso in late June. “The sight of this little place is truly refreshing to the weary traveler of the plains – indeed, the cool shady avenues, fragrant breezes, delicious fruits and luxuriant appearance of every thing around, makes one almost feel that he is transported to the bowers of Eden,” he wrote in his journal.
The Mexican city, he said, had a population of about 4,000, and “several hundred Americans” were camped on the U.S. side of the river, resting their animals and replenishing their supplies. They usually stayed about four weeks. By the end of the summer, another writer would guess that 4,000 people were in the camp, making it as large as the city across the river.
What did all these people do? They weren’t particularly patriotic. Cox complained in his July 4 entry about “the indifference of all” to the holiday.
Some of the forty-niners went Indian-hunting. Apaches “make frequent descents upon El Passo and the settlement near, and the inhabitants are in constant dread of their approach. Apache scalps are worth two hundred dollars, prisoners two hundred and fifty.” Cox wrote.
“The Authorities here offer great inducement to those who are fond of fighting. A company is being made up among the Americans here for that purpose and no doubt at least a hundred will join it.”
Some of the forty-niners learned Spanish and flirted with Mexican women. Some of them, unable to find anything to buy, stole supplies from the Mexicans.
“There is but little to sell here and everything commands a high price,” Cox wrote.
Another traveler, Lewis B. Harris, wrote in a letter: “We can hardly get anything from (the Mexicans) except at exorbitant prices. Beef eight and ten centers per lb … and every thing else in proportion. There will be an abundance of fruit here in about a month or six weeks.”
Even U.S. Boundary Commissioner John Russell Bartlett had trouble buying supplies a year later. “Provisions of all kinds were exceedingly high (in 1850, when he came to El Paso): flour, thirty-two dollars a barrel; pork, sugar, and coffee, fifty cents a pound … The arrival of my party rather tended to increase prices; for the population (of the city) was so limited.”
Some of the shrewder forty-niners realized the situation was a gold mine of its own. Instead of going on to California, they stopped at El Paso and opened for business, arranging with Santa Fe traders to get stock.
“Thompson’s families have located opposite El Passo, and established a store,” Cox wrote.
“That property on this side (of) the river was recently purchased by Mr. Coon, a trader from Missouri. He also has a large store,” Benjamin Franklin Coons, one of El Paso’s founding fathers, later would give his middle name to the mountains on the U.S. side of the pass.
Merchants weren’t the only ones who did business with the campers. “Among the residents of the place is numbered “The Great Western,’ a female notorious in the late war,” Cox noted. It’s widely assumed that this remarkable prostitute set up El Paso’s first brothel.
With U.S. settlements, commerce and entertainment, “El Passo” would never be the same.
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