|
|
The Caples Building on San Antonio Street in downtown El Paso.
Image provided by George D. Torok
Research Packet and Narrative by:
Christina Diaz
Dr. George D. Torok
Honors Project
Fall 2002
National Endowment for the Humanities Historical Markers Project
Historical Narrative: Caples Building 300 East San Antonio Avenue
The
Caples Building is a Romanesque seven story structure located at 300
East San Antonio Street in downtown El Paso. The building is not only
architecturally significant but it also played an important role in
the Mexican Revolution serving as a headquarters for many
revolutionary and opposition activities. It is listed on the National
Register of Historic Places.
The
building was commissioned by Richard Caples who served as the city’s
mayor from 1889 to 1893. He hired Henry C. Trost (1860-1933) to design
the building. Trost was the principle designer for the architectural
firm Trost and Trost. Trost 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 oft them in El Paso, during his career.
In 1909, Trost designed the Caples building as a five-story office
structure, “El Paso’s first cement poured building.” The Caples
Building was built by contractor Otto P. Kroeger who began
construction in 1909 and cost approximately 50,000 dollars. Concrete
and steel construction allowed for larger, taller buildings but also
helped with fireproofing. Most of the concrete was concealed beneath
brick facades and was exposed in a few areas of ornamentation.
The original Caples Building was modified in 1915-16 with the addition
of two stories. The top two stories have terracotta detailing and
round arched windows. The overall style of the Caples Building is
Romanesque, containing both Roman and Byzantine elements.
The
Caples Building is also significant because it served as the center of
many activities during the Mexican Revolution. El Paso’s position
opposite Ciudad Juarez made it an ideal location from which to plan and
launch a major uprising. Here Abraham Gonzalez, provisional governor of
Chihuahua, organized the Madero Junta, a group of revolutionaries
backing Mexican reformer Francisco Madero. Gonzalez was joined by
college professor Braulio Hernandez, lawyer Federico Gonzales-Garza, and
Castula Herrera, who supposedly fired the first shot of the Revolution.
Madero, along with prominent revolutionary leaders Pascual Orozco and
Francisco “Pancho” Villa, also became part of the junta. Gonzalez and
his group of conspirators met in rooms 507 and 508, on the fifth floor
of the Caples Building, to raise money for arms and ammunition, and
planned the assault on Ciudad Juarez in 1911. El Paso physician Ira
Jefferson Bush kept an office in the Caples Building and worked closely
with Madero’s army helping to smuggle arms across the river.
The most influential Mexican revolutionary newspaper, La Regeneracion,
also operated out of the Caples Building.
The Caples Building retains much of its original outward appearance. It
has served many business and agencies over the years and remained in use
until 1996. In 1980, it was added to the National Register of Historic
Places. Since 1996 it has been neglected but remains structurally sound.
.Lloyd
C. and June Marie F. Englebrecht, Henry C. Trost: Architect of
the Southwest (El Paso, TX 1981), 31-35.
.
(El Paso, TX) Herald-Post, July 9, 1909.
.
Herald-Post, July 9, 1909.
.
W.H. Timmons, El Paso: A Borderlands
History (El Paso, TX 1990), 211.
.
Mardee Belding de Wetter, “Revolutionary El Paso: 1910-1917,”
Password 3 (April 1955), 46, 55; Leon Metz, El Paso: Guided
through Time (El Paso, TX 1999), 103-4.
|
