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The Plaza
Hotel in downtown El Paso, Texas was once a
luxurious Hilton Hotel. Image provided by George D. Torok
Plaza Hotel site
El Paso, Texas
Research Packet and
Narrative by:
Vanessa Mendoza
Dr. George
D. Torok
Honors Project
Spring 2002
National Endowment for the
Humanities Historical Markers Project
Historical Narrative: Plaza Hotel (formerly the Hilton Hotel )
The
Plaza Hotel, located at 106 Mills Avenue in downtown El Paso, is a
fine example of the modernistic Art Deco style of the 1920s. It was
designed by Henry C. Trost (1860-1933) for the Hilton Hotel chain and
served as one of the city’s most luxurious hotels. In 1980, it was
listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel was
designed and constructed for Conrad N. Hilton (1887-1979) who created
one of the first international hotel chains. He was a native of San
Antonio, New Mexico who entered the hotel business in the 1910s. He
acquired and renovated prominent old hotels, built a series of new
hotels in the west, and eventually expanded his empire around the
world. During the 1920s, Hilton concentrated on building hotels in
Texas. El Paso’s Hilton Hotel, the eighth hotel in the Hilton chain,
was the first high rise, the largest and the most elaborate. Hilton
went on to develop 188 hotels in 38 U.S. cities and 54 cities abroad.
The
Hilton Hotel Company invested heavily in the project. In 1929 they
arranged for a ninety-nine year lease of the property at Mills and
Oregon Streets at an estimated cost of 4.9 million dollars and the R.E.
McKee Company was awarded the contract for the building which was
estimated to cost more than 1.1 million dollars to construct and
furnish.
The new hotel was built on the site of the Hotel Sheldon, constructed
in 1888, and once regarded as the “best hotel in the southwest.”
The hotel was designed by renowned El Paso architect Henry C. Trost.
Trost was the principle designer for the architectural firm Trost and
Trost. He arrived in El Paso in 1903 and during the next thirty years
he 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.
Trost’s Hilton Hotel remains an excellent example of the Art Deco
style popular in the 1920s. The seventeen story structure (a fifteen
story hotel tower on a 2 story block) was described as combining
“semi-modernistic lines” with Indian designs and towered over the
center of the city.
The
facade of the first two floors featured Art Deco designs and the tower
was roofed with green terra cotta tile.
The interior areas were described as “ultra-modern” with rooms
featuring fully electric lighting and ceiling fans, radios, and
private baths in each room.
When opened in July 1930, the new Hilton Hotel was touted as a virtual
“fairlyland” with “exotic Spanish decorations,” “bellhops garbed in
Spanish costumes,” “mazes of chrysanthemuns, dahlias, and bluebonnets”
throughout the lobby.
Hundreds attended the opening ceremonies, thousands toured the
building, and the entire event was broadcast by local radio stations.
Although Hilton began construction of the hotel just as the Great
Depression hit, it survived the 1930s and underwent several
renovations. In 1936 one hundred rooms were air-conditioned and
refurnished and an entirely new cocktail lounge was constructed.
By the 1940s it had established a reputation for elegance and became a
social center for the city. Conrad Hilton’s mother resided in the
hotel in the 1940s and Elizabeth Taylor briefly lived there during her
marriage to Conrad’s son, Nicky. Several prominent El Pasoans also
called the Hilton Hotel their home.
The
Hilton Hotel remained an impressive downtown landmark until 1963 when it
was sold and a new Hilton was built at the El Paso International
Airport.
The old Hilton re-opened as the Plaza Hotel and continued operations
until 1991. In 1980, it was placed on the National Register of Historic
Places. Since that time the ground floors have been occupied by
retailers but the more than 200 hotel rooms have remained vacant. The
historic hotel building remains a prominent landmark on the city’s San
Jacinto Plaza.
.
(El Paso, TX) Post, Oct. 24, 1929.
.
(El Paso, TX) Herald, Aug. 28, 1929.
.Lloyd
C. and June Marie F. Englebrecht, Henry C. Trost: Architect of
the Southwest (El Paso, TX 1981), 31-35.
.
“Plaza Hotel,” http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us.
.
Kay Rothenberg, “The El Paso Hilton,”
Pacific Coast Record XXI (March 1931),
7.
.
(El Paso, TX) Herald, July 18, 1930.
.
(El Paso, TX) Herald, Dec. 2, 1936; (El Paso, TX)
Herald-Post, April 22, 1937.
.
“Plaza Hotel,” http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us.
.
(El Paso, TX) Times, Apr. 10, 2001.
.
(El Paso, TX) Times, July 19, 1995.
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