1904: What one traveler thinks of El Paso
Feb. 5, 1904
Visits El Paso and Juarez and Writes a Highly Interesting Account of His Impressions to His Best Girl at Home, But Fails to Post It.
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A letter was yesterday picked up in Juarez and handed to a Times reporter and is below reproduced for the verification of the readers. The man who is writing was evidently traveling through and gives his impression of El Paso, which will be highly interesting to the citizens of the town, as a view in a look glass or a glimpse of how others see us always is.
He speaks of the "staring bricks" of El Paso. He has very evidently been used to plank and shingle houses and cannot become at once accustomed to the modern structures of stone and brick which he encountered here and they very naturally impressed him unfavorably. The letter is without address or signature and is evidently written to his best beloved. Here it is:
El Paso Tex., Aug. 8 1903.
Sweetheart-Got through to here at 9:15 a.m. today and leave for Galveston tonight at 7:45. A most horrible nightmare of a journey down just such rows at the Windsor, Socorro, that I gave up trying to sleep and sat up and talked to your friend the bald-headed hotel clerk until the train came in, then a stuffy August night journey on the cars with every window closed. However, I managed to get a wash here (can't afford a bath - 50 cents - dreadful) and feel cleaner.
I have been down to Juarez, the Mexican city on the other side of the river, and it makes me feel awfully annoyed to think that I cannot buy things like opals, drawnwork, etc., when I probably shall never have another opportunity of getting them. There is a much-scented young lady opposite me as I write just now - evidently a Mexican - and eyeing me with apparent favor - I wish she'd go. Juarez is a thoroughly Mexican town and El Paso is as thoroughly American. I do not know which is the more distasteful. Juarez all small squalid adobe building and this place staring brick. The police and city marshals in both staringly aggressive. In Juarez with enormous pointed black beaver hats trimmed with silver and here, blue coats, brass buttons and a gold band around the hat. Both kinds carry ominous looking clubs and revolvers and spend their time lounging at saloon corners and chewing. But the general effect of the buildings and police is to give one the impression of being stared at and being unfavorably commented upon. "We didn't ask you to come here," they seem to say. "We don't want you; don't think much of you anyhow and wish you'd go." I respond inwardly; "Gentlemen, my train unfortunately does not leave till 7:45 tonight, and, worse luck, is reported an hour late."
They tell me that the journey to the gulf is beautiful and my train takes two days to make it, so I will not post this now, but will scribble some more in pencil on the way. By the way, I do not know if I have mentioned it, but rather fancy that I have; only, of course, it is a secret, for I do not think that anyone else can possibly be aware of the fact and, indeed, perhaps you many not believe it, though I think that you must, be the most purblind individual if you do not realize it, but - you won't mention it, will you? - Oh, listen! I LOVE YOU!
Of course the police were watchful. They are ever upon the alert for suspicious characters and wouldn't they be very negligent if they overlooked a man who was capable of writing a letter like that? Of course, he was observed. Either they took him for a suspicious criminal, or else a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. A man in love is certainly not to be trusted, whether in America or Mexico, and the police know it.