Tornillo

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Tornillo, down in El Paso County. Now, every good Texas town has a story, and Tornillo's starts with a bush. Not just any bush, mind you, the screw-bean bush, a hardy little firewood plant that once grew thick across this stretch of country.

The Spanish word for that bush is tornillo, and that is how this town got its name. Right there in the roots of the place, before a single deed was signed or a post office opened, the land itself was doing the naming. Now, the real action begins when the United States Reclamation Service announced plans to build dam and reservoir projects on the Rio Grande.

That kind of announcement has a way of making investors sit up straight, and sure enough, an El Paso investment firm took notice. They founded the Tornillo Townsite Company, mapped out the townsite in 1909, and that same year the Tornillo Post Office opened its doors. A town was coming into being.

Then the Elephant Butte project, north of El Paso, was completed, and agricultural speculation in the area picked up even more steam. In about 1917, three men stepped forward who were willing to put their money and their muscle where the promise was. J.B.

Dale, Will T. Owen, and Louis J. Ivey planted six hundred acres of cotton in Tornillo.

Six hundred acres. They harvested a successful crop, and then they built the town's first cotton gin. That combination, a proven harvest and a gin to process it, was the kind of signal other farmers and businessmen understood.

They came. And by the late nineteen twenties, Tornillo was not just surviving, it was boasting. Several corporations.

Packing plants. A cattle feeding operation. Stores.

A modern school system. This little desert town with a name borrowed from a firewood shrub had built itself into something that looked, for a while, like a genuine agricultural hub. Then came the nineteen thirties and the Great Depression, and Tornillo's economy suffered the way so many Texas towns suffered, hard and without mercy.

The marker says the town never fully revived. Urban growth in nearby El Paso contributed to the decline, drawing people and commerce away as the years moved on. So Tornillo stands today, a symbol, the marker calls it, of early commercial development in El Paso County.

Not a cautionary tale exactly, not a triumph exactly either. Just the honest record of a town that grew from a screw-bean bush, reached for something big, and left its mark on the land before the land had other ideas.

What the marker says

The town of Tornillo derives its name from the Spanish word for screw-bean bush, a hardy firewood once prevalent in the area. Efforts to establish this site as a major agricultural center began when the United States Reclamation Service announced plans to build dam and reservoir projects on the Rio Grande. The Tornillo Townsite Company, founded by an El Paso investment firm, mapped the townsite in 1909, and the Tornillo Post Office was established the same year. After the Elephant Butte project north of El Paso was completed, agricultural speculation in the area increased. In about 1917, three leading agriculturists, J.B. Dale, Will T. Owen, and Louis J. Ivey, planted 600 acres of cotton in Tornillo. They harvested a successful crop and built the town's first cotton gin. Other farmers and businessmen, attracted by their success, settled here and by the late 1920s, Tornillo boasted several corporations, packing plants, and a cattle feeding operation, as well as several stores and a modern school system. The town's economy suffered in the Great Depression of the 1930s and never fully revived. Urban growth in nearby El Paso contributed to the decline of the settlement. Tornillo stands today as a symbol of early commercial development in El Paso County. (1983)