Cortez Building
El edificio Cortez

Cortez Building

The Cortez Building is located on the northeast corner of North Mesa and Mills Avenue on San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso. For more than seventy-five years it has served the city as a hotel, office building, and home to government agencies. It was originally built as a hotel on the plaza, the last of three hotels to occupy that site. In 1899, Mrs. Alzina DeGroff, a pioneer in the hotel business in El Paso, acquired the Vendome Hotel and renamed it the Hotel Orndorff after her first husband. She operated it for more than twenty-five years until 1924 when she borrowed 825,000 dollars and hired the renowned El Paso architectural firm Trost and Trost to design a new hotel. The Hotel Orndorff was demolished and a new Orndorff Hotel was constructed at the same site at a cost of more than 1.4 million dollars. Henry C. Trost, who dominated the architectural scene of the American Southwest for more than three decades, designed the building.

Area: Central / Downtown

Source: EPMH

Uploaded by: El Paso Museum of History

Comments

Add a comment
Thank you for your comment

Report this entry

Choose the most important reason for this report

Your name

Your email address

Optional detail

Thank you for your report

More from the same community-collection

Hands on Activity Trunk El Paso, Texas

This trunk and items in it represent what people could bring ...

Hands on Activity Trunk El Paso, Texas

This trunk and items in it represent what people could bring ...

Baggage Scale El Paso, Texas

Baggage Scale from Union Depot, post 1873-1990.

Baseball Items El Paso, Texas

Championship Baseball, 1891. Photo of El Paso Browns, 1890. ...

Boy with the Boot Statue El Paso, Texas

The Boy was first placed in the park next to old City Hall in ...

Men's and Women's Wedding Clothing El Paso, Texas

Man’s Wedding Coat, 1853 Worn by Prof. C.C. Huffaker at his ...

Destiladora

This large cone-shaped limestone filters rainwater to make it ...

Engine No 2 El Paso, Texas

Engine No 2, Steam Pumper, 1901

Architecture and Landscaping El Paso, Texas

Both the Spanish and the Native American peoples of Meso America ...

Letters and Bibles El Paso, Texas

The surge of population headed to California for the 1849 Gold ...

Mason and Hamlin Organ and Edison Phonograph

Mason & Hamlin Organ, ca. 1870. Edison Phonograph, 1915-1919. ...

Vanity Case

Vanity case, 1872. Emma Schuyler may have received this ...

Packsaddle El Paso, Texas

The men in charge of a string of pack mules – were very ...

Quilts, Patchwork, and Coverlet

Patchwork, Quilts and Coverlets from the 19th Century. ...

Sports

Highlights the different sports that were brought to El Paso, ...

Typewriters and Saddle Making Tools

Skills Choosing El Paso often meant bringing skills to the ...

Army Wagon and Repairing Wheel

U.S. Army Wagon, ca. 1915 Wrecked during service on the border ...

Gunning Casteel, Inc. El Paso, Texas

Gunning Casteel was a pharmacy in downtown El Paso, Texas circa ...

Gunning Casteel, inc. Prescription Drugs El Paso, Texas

Headache prescription filled by Gunning Casteel pharmacy in El ...

Master bedroom El Paso, Texas

Image shows master bedroom of Octavia and Joseph Magoffin's ...

Original Adobe Used For The Home El Paso, Texas

Image shows small sample of original adobe used in historic ...

Magoffin Home Dining Area

Guide shows dining area of historic Magoffin Home in El Paso ...

home.search_collection