El Paisano Hotel

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as Duane can render it. The El Paisano Hotel, out in Presidio County, now there's a building with a story baked right into its bones. Completed in 1930, this place was the vision of the Gateway Hotel Company, a outfit that already had its hands in several area hotels and figured the time was right to go big.

And why not? Word had gotten around that oil was coming to that part of West Texas, and the Gateway Hotel Company was not about to let that boom catch them flat-footed. So they brought in Trost and Trost, an architectural firm out of El Paso, and they said: build us something worthy.

Trost and Trost delivered. The El Paisano went up with Spanish Baroque styling, constructed around a central courtyard, the kind of place that stops you in your tracks and makes you forget for a moment how far you are from anywhere. And it was no modest claim when folks said this was the finest hotel between El Paso and San Antonio.

That is a lot of miles, friend. A lot of dust and desert between those two cities, and right there in the middle stood the El Paisano, polished and proud. Now the hotel took its name from the nearby Paisano Mountain pass; the land itself lending its identity to the building that rose up to greet it.

The only thing that didn't show up? The oil. That boom the Gateway Hotel Company had built their whole gamble on, it never materialized.

And that, right there, is the particular Texas kind of heartbreak: a magnificent building, a grand bet, and the ground that just wouldn't pay out. The El Paisano stood anyway. Finest between El Paso and San Antonio, oil or no oil.

What the marker says

Named for the nearby Paisano Mountain pass, this structure was completed in 1930. Gateway Hotel Company, owners of several area hotels, built it in anticipation of a local oil boom that never materialized. The architectural firm Trost and Trost of El Paso designed the building. Constructed around a central courtyard area, the structure reflects Spanish Baroque styling. It was considered to be the finest hotel between El Paso and San Antonio. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1979.