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The Ponce de Leon hacienda was located near the site
of today's Mills Building on San Jacinto Plaza in
downtown El Paso, Texas. Image provided by George Torok.
Ponce de Leon Settlement
El
Paso, Texas
Research Packet and Narrative
by:
Alonso Carrasco
Jamie Carter
Dr. George D. Torok
Honors Project
Summer 2004
National Endowment for the Humanities Historical Markers Project
Narrative: Ponce de Leon Hacienda and Acequia
Mills Building Site on Oregon Street
In January 1827, Juan Maria Ponce de Leon, a
wealthy and influential citizen of El Paso del Norte, (present-day
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico), petitioned the city’s ayuntamiento for
a land grant on the north bank of the Rio Grande, about one mile from
the plaza. He had apparently already been farming the land for some
time and now wished to legally own it. The petition was approved by
the ayuntamiento, validated by the government of Chihuahua, and
transferred to Ponce de Leon. On September 25, 1827, the land grant
was formally surveyed and placed in the possession of Ponce de Leon by
the Alcade of Paso del Norte. This land formed the base for the Ponce
de Leon Hacienda, the first settlement in what would later become
American El Paso.
The northern tract contained two caballerias,
an old Spanish measurement of about 106 acres, and was valued at
eighty pesos. After taking formal possession, Ponce de Leon completed
an acequia, or irrigation ditch, with its mouth located just
above a dam located south of the river ford known as
el paso. At the time,
the Rio Grande ran near the path of Paisano Drive. The acequia ran
from the river to the ranch on a path close to that of today’s San
Francisco Street and Texas Avenue.
It watered the fields and vineyards that were located south of Texas
near today’s United States Courthouse.
Cottonwood trees were planted along the acequia. Corn and wheat were
planted in the southeastern part of the grant and an orchard was begun
in the western part.
A
one-story adobe home was soon built near the river, near the
present-day intersection of El Paso Street and Paisano Drive, but was
destroyed in the spring floods of 1830. Following the floods, on May
4, 1830, Ponce de Leon received another caballeria, began construction
of a second, larger home, and developed a thriving farming and
ranching business. The second home was fortified and had a watchtower
to help guard against Apache attacks. The second house became the
center of a small settlement known as Ponce’s Rancho.
Ponce de Leon continued to maintain a residence in
El Paso del Norte and apparently divided his time between the two
homes. There is some debate over the exact location of Ponce de Leon’s
second house which became known as the Ponce de Leon Hacienda. Most
evidence points to it being located on the present-day site of the
Mills Building, opposite the westside of San Jacinto Plaza.house.
Some have speculated that it was located further west, in the
present-day Civic Center Complex. At least one contemporary account
indicates that it was near today’s Chihuahua Street, where it once
intersected San Francisco Avenue.
(A 1998 archaeological report recommended an historical marker be
placed near the Mills Building site).
Ponce de Leon also built a tannery and flour mill west of the
hacienda, near today’s West Paisano Drive, where an earthen dam was
located.
After the end of the Mexican War and the signing of
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, lands north of the Rio Grande
became part of the United States. American merchant Benjamin Franklin
Coons bought the Ponce de Leon grant and leased part it to the U.S.
Army’s Third Infantry in 1849. The settlement became known as Coon’s
Ranch, and later as Franklin.
Although Coons defaulted on his payments, and the land was briefly
returned to Ponce de Leon, it was sold by his family to other
Americans after his death in 1852.By the late 1850s it was owned by
the El Paso Company and was surveyed by Anson Mills who developed
Franklin into a townsite.
The land grant continued to generate controversy long
after Ponce de Leon was gone. In the late 19th century there
were numerous efforts to determine the original boundaries of the grant
and settle disputes over boundaries. The raging waters of the Rio Grande
carved new channels and the general position of the river continued to
move south toward Mexico after extensive floods in 1860, 1864, 1868, and
1873.The dispute over these lands, and the actual boundaries of the
Ponce de Leon Land Grant were not finally resolved until the Chamizal
Treaty of 1964 which was formally implemented in 1967.
.
C. L. Sonnichsen, Pass of the North: Four Centuries on the Rio
Grande (El Paso, TX, 1968), 107; J.J. Bowden, The Ponce de
Leon Land Grant (El Paso, TX, 1969), 3; W. H. Timmons, El
Paso: A Borderlands History (El Paso, TX, 1990), 79.
.John
A. Peterson and Mark D. Willis, The
Union Plaza Downtown El Paso Development Archaeological Project:
Overview, Inventory and Recommendations
(El Paso, TX, 1998), 40.
.
Sonnichsen, Pass of the North, 107; Peterson and Willis,
Union Plaza Archaeological Project,
45, fig. 2:2.
.
W.H. Timmons, El Paso: A Borderlands
History (El Paso, TX, 1990), 79.
.
Bowden, Ponce de Leon Land Grant, 44n; Peterson and Willis,
Union Plaza Archaeological Project, 40.
.
The controversy is discussed in Bowden, Ponce de Leon Land Grant,
45, note 9.
.
Peterson and Willis, Union Plaza
Archaeological Project, 236.
.
Leon Metz, El Paso: Guided through Time
(El Paso, TX, 1999), 20.
.
Bowden, Ponce de Leon Land Grant, 5,6, 10; Timmons,
El Paso, 112.
.
Bowden, Ponce de Leon Land Grant, 31, 33, 43.
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