El Paso Smelter and Railroad Bridge

The postcard shows the El Paso railroad bridge in the beginning of the 20th century. To the right is the Mexican bank, to the left the U. S. bank. At that time, the Rio Grande carried a lot more water than it does today. Behind the bridge, some houses and the stacks of Smeltertown can be seen. Smeltertown was an industrial area, which came into being with the construction in 1887 of the Kansas City Consolidated Smelting and Refining Company (later the American Smelting and Refining Company, or ASARCO) copper and lead smelter. In the 1880s the Mexican employees of the smelter began building houses west of the smelter, beside the Rio Grande. The residents lived in very poor conditions, which was brought to attention in the 1940s. In the 1970s it was found out that the majority of the residents there were suffering from lead poisoning due to a huge amount of lead emission. As ASARCO was not prepared to modernize and improve, the residents were forced to move and the smelter closed down.

Area: Central / Smeltertown

Collection: Stansel Postcard Collection

Source: University of Texas at El Paso Library - Special Collections Department

Reference ID: PH049-1-1-036

Uploaded by: El Paso Museum of History