DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of the official marker for Mabel Welch, right out of El Paso County. Now, El Paso has a way of forgetting what it is — and then finding itself again. That's a long story, but there's one woman right at the heart of it.
Mabel C. Welch. Born Vanderburg.
El Paso's first certified female architect. And before we're done here, you're going to understand just how much of what you might see driving through that city came from one woman's eyes and one woman's hands. But let's start a little before Mabel.
Early El Paso — the settlers built with adobe bricks, the way the land and the region had always suggested they should. Made sense. Then the railroad arrived in 1881, and El Paso became a thriving city almost overnight.
And with all those new people pouring in came new styles, new building techniques, the traditions and experiences of everyone who settled here. The adobe disappeared. The regional architecture that had belonged to that place — gone, replaced, the way progress tends to replace things without asking permission.
For thirty-some years, El Paso looked like it could've been anywhere. Now — 1916. Mabel and Malcolm Welch arrive in El Paso.
Within four years, they're designing and constructing homes together. A partnership. A team.
And then — Malcolm is hospitalized with tuberculosis. Here's where you find out who somebody is. Mabel didn't stop.
She completed the construction of the home her husband had begun. Then she assumed the entire design and construction process for his other projects. And when Malcolm died, she kept right on working.
Kept building. Through 1926 and into early 1927, she designed and built nine houses — nine — just on the 3100 block of Wheeling Avenue alone. Let that sink in.
Somewhere in all of this, Mabel was also traveling. Trips across the Southwest, during this same period, introduced her to Spanish architectural style. And something clicked.
She believed — believed down to her bones — that this style was more in keeping with the Spanish-Indian heritage of El Paso than the red brick bungalows lining the city's streets. When she came back from those trips, she designed exclusively in the Spanish Colonial Revival style. Exclusively.
No hedging, no compromise. El Paso's regional soul had been gone for decades. Mabel Welch brought it back.
The state of Texas certified her as an architect in 1939 — officially, on paper, what she had already been proving with every house she raised. She worked in El Paso and throughout the region right into the early 1950s. You can still find her work in the Manhattan Heights historic district, in the Castle Heights addition, along Rim Road.
And across her entire career, Mabel Welch designed as many as fifteen hundred homes in El Paso and across the Southwest. Fifteen hundred homes. Each one a quiet argument that a place should look like itself.
She won that argument.
What the marker says
Mabel C. (Vanderburg) Welch, El Paso’s first certified female architect, is credited with reintroducing Spanish-style architecture to the city. Early El Paso residents built with adobe bricks, a method common to the region. After the arrival of the railroad in 1881, El Paso grew into a thriving city, and this regional architecture disappeared, replaced by styles and building techniques that reflected the traditions and experiences of those who settled here. Within four years of their 1916 arrival in El Paso, Mabel and Malcolm Welch began designing and constructing homes. When Malcolm was hospitalized with tuberculosis, Mabel completed the construction of a home that her husband had begun. She subsequently assumed the entire design and construction process for his other projects, and continued to work on her own after his death. Through 1926 and into early 1927, Mabel designed and built nine houses in the 3100 block of Wheeling Ave. Trips across the southwest during this period introduced Mabel to the Spanish archtectural style, which she believed was more in keeping with the Spanish-Indian heritage of El Paso than the red brick bungalows that lined the city’s streets. Upon her return she designed exclusively in the Spanish Colonial Revival style. Welch continued her work in El Paso and throughout the region into the early 1950s. Examples are located in the Manhattan Heights historic district, the Castle Heights addition and along Rim Road. The state of Texas certified Welch as an architect in 1939. She designed as many as 1,500 homes in El Paso and across the southwest during her career.