DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one ringing the bell — here's the story of the Mesa Water Boosting Station as the Texas Historical Commission put it down. Now, if you've ever been thirsty in the desert, you understand the particular kind of desperation that shaped El Paso at the turn of the twentieth century. Water wasn't just a convenience out here.
It was a promise. And in 1903, a man named Charles R. Morehead made that promise the centerpiece of his entire mayoral campaign.
He ran on a platform that said, plainly and boldly, this city deserves an acceptable water system. El Paso believed him. He won.
Later that same year, the International Water Company — the IWC — got to work. They started construction of a water works on the mesa north of Fort Bliss, reachin' down into the Hueco Bolson Aquifer. That aquifer had been sitting under the desert floor for a long, long time, and now somebody finally had the ambition to pull from it.
Around 1904, the IWC swapped out their compressor for a brand-new pump plant — the Mesa Pump Plant — and with it came something almost extravagant for a desert city: a one-million-gallon, in-ground tank to store all that pulled water. One million gallons. Just sitting there underground, patient as stone.
But here's where the desert starts winning again. El Paso was growing, and growing fast, and the IWC was pumping water at a rate that flat-out exceeded the aquifer's ability to replenish itself. They were drawing faster than nature could give back.
That's a race you can't win forever. In 1909, the City of El Paso stepped in and bought the International Water Company outright — nine hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars for the whole operation. But even with the city holding the reins, the Mesa Pump Plant couldn't keep up.
Demand just kept climbing, the way demand in a growing desert city always does, relentless as the sun. The city ground away at the problem through the years. By the late 1930s, they'd expanded the municipal water system and revamped what already existed.
By 1937, El Paso had organized itself into two distinct systems: a low-service district for elevations below three thousand, eight hundred and fifty feet, and a high-service district for everything above that line. The old Mesa Pump Plant found itself folded into the high-service system, still working, still aging. So in 1938, the City of El Paso Department of Water and Sewage made a decision.
They would build something new — something to replace that worn-out pump plant once and for all. The man who drew the plans was city water department superintendent Ashley Green Classen, and what Classen designed was no ordinary utility building. He gave El Paso the Mesa Water Boosting Station, a reinforced concrete, one-story, rectangular facility featuring prominent buttresses, stylized tile designs, large casement windows, and stucco finishes — built in a style called Pueblo Deco.
The boosting station remains, to this day, the only historic municipal structure in El Paso built in that style. Several tanks, reservoirs, settling basins, other buildings and structures — Classen put them all on the plans, and the city built every one of them. The Texas Historical Commission recognized it all with a recorded landmark in 2009.
What I find worth sitting with is this: El Paso made a promise in 1903 — an acceptable water system — and for the next thirty-five years, the city kept renegotiating that promise with the desert, spending nine hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars here, revamping facilities there, redrawing the elevation lines, until finally Ashley Green Classen put pencil to paper and drew something that could actually hold its own. Out here in the high Chihuahuan desert, that's not just infrastructure. That's stubbornness refined into art.
What the marker says
In 1903, Charles R. Morehead won the El Paso mayoral race on a platform that promised an acceptable water system for the city. Later that year, the International Water Company (IWC) began construction of a water works on the mesa north of Fort Bliss to tap into the Hueco Bolson Aquifer. Around 1904, IWC replaced the compressor with a new pump plant. This new Mesa Pump Plant drew water from the mesa wells that was then stored in a one-million-gallon, in-ground tank. However, in order to meet demand, IWC pumped water at a rate that exceeded replenishment. The City of El Paso purchased the IWC in 1909 for $927,000, but even under municipal ownership, the pump plant could not meet the demand for water. By the late 1930s, the city had both expanded the municipal water system and revamped existing facilities in order to meet constantly increasing demand. By 1937, the city had both a low-service district system for elevations below 3,850 feet and a high-service district system for elevations above 3,850 feet; the Mesa Pump Plant was included in the high-service system. The City of El Paso Department of Water and Sewage built the Mesa Water Boosting Station in 1938 to replace the aging Mesa Pump Plant. City water department superintendent Ashley Green Classen drew the plans for the facility, which included several tanks, reservoirs, settling basins and other buildings and structures. The boosting station remains the only historic municipal structure in El Paso built in the Pueblo Deco style. The reinforced concrete, one-story, rectangular plan facility features prominent buttresses, stylized tile designs, large casement windows and stucco finishes. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2009