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Roberts-Banner Building, Image from the Aultman
Collection, provided by the
El Paso Public Library
Roberts- Banner Building
El Paso, Texas
Research Packet and
Narrative by:
Paula Soto
Dr. George D. Torok
Honors Project
Spring 2002
National Endowment for the
Humanities Historical Markers Project
Historical Narrative:
Roberts-Banner Building
The
Roberts-Banner Building, known today as simply the Banner Building,
is a five story commercial/office building located at 215 North Mesa
Street, across from San Jacinto Plaza, at the southwest corner of Mesa
and Mills, in downtown El Paso, Texas. The Roberts-Banner Building
was built in 1910 and is a fine example of a reinforced concrete
structure, designed by renowned southwest architect Henry C. Trost
(1860-1933). It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The
structure was commissioned by two prominent New Mexican cattlemen,
Martin D. Roberts and William M. Banner, who began investing in the
growth of downtown El Paso in the early years of the 20th
century. The building lot was purchased by Roberts and Banner in 1908
and the architectural firm Trost & Trost was hired to design a new
edifice for the site. Henry C. Trost was the principle designer for
the architectural firm Trost & Trost. He arrived in El Paso in 1903
and during the next thirty years developed some of the region’s most
striking and unique buildings. Trost was greatly influenced by Louis
Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright and mastered a wide variety of popular
building styles. He was also a pioneer in the use of reinforced
concrete. He designed more than 650 buildings in the southwestern
United States and northern Mexico, 200 of them in El Paso, during his
career.
The
Roberts-Banner Building is significant as the first reinforced
concrete building in El Paso and one of the first in the United
States. Built on a compact base measuring eighty by ninety-five feet
it was the largest office building in El Paso when completed in 1910.
It features a u-shaped office tower on a rectangular first story base.
Most of the exposed surface of the structure is concrete with limited
ornamentation. Only the ground floor, used for retail space, was
different; it originally featured green terra cotta tile. The upper
floors were used for offices and feature deep set windows. The second
and fifth floor levels featured projecting concrete cornices.
The
Roberts-Banner building has been continually used since its completion
in 1910 but only the street-level has been altered over the years. In
1950, after the death of Martin Roberts, the building was deeded to
the Banner Corporation and became known as the Banner Building. In
1977, the MacDonald’s Corporation opened one of its fast food outlets
in the ground floor of the Banner Building and helped restore some of
the exterior detail. It continues to operate there today.
The
Roberts-Banner Building has been cited as an excellent example of a
modern downtown skyscraper of the early 20th century. It
has been described as having “one of the strongest designs of any El
Paso building” and produced an “overall boldness which reflects a
statement of confidence and courage by the designers.” It would fit
well with other prominent downtown areas such as New York’s Fifth
Avenue or Los Angeles’ Wilshire Boulevard.
Because of its architectural significance it was placed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
.
Leon C. Metz, Guided Through Time (El Paso, TX 1993), 53-54;
“Roberts-Banner Building, El Paso, TX,” unpublished National
Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form (El Paso, TX
1978), 18.
.Lloyd
C. and June Marie F. Englebrecht, Henry C. Trost: Architect of
the Southwest (El Paso, TX 1981), 31-35; (El Paso, TX)
Herald, Nov. 24, 1909, Aug. 20, 1910; Jay C. Henry,
Architecture in Texas (Austin, TX 1993), 296n.
.
Metz, Guided Through Time, 53; Evan Haywood Antone, ed.,
Portals at the Pass: El Paso Area
Architecture to 1930 (El Paso, TX
1984), 27.
.
(El Paso, TX) Times, Oct. 2, 1977.”215 North Mesa Street
File,” El Paso Department of Planning, Research, and Development, El
Paso, TX.
.
Antone, ed., Portals at the Pass, 29.
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