Maj. Gen. Anson Mills
Teniente General Anson Mills

Maj. Gen. Anson Mills

Anson Mills, surveyor, builder, army officer, engineer, American boundary commissioner, diplomat, and inventor, was born at Thorntown, Indiana, on August 31, 1834, the son of James P. and Sarah (Kenworthy) Mills. He attended school in Indiana and New York and accepted an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1855. After flunking out at West Point in 1857, he rode the Butterfield Overland Mail stage to El Paso, where he arrived on May 8, 1858. He was appointed district surveyor and surveyed Forts Quitman, Davis, Stockton, and Bliss, all in West Texas. He also built the Overland Building, for three decades the largest structure in El Paso. On February 28, 1859, Mills submitted a street map of a settlement called Ponce's Rancho, Franklin, and Smithsville. He called the little community El Paso, and the name stuck. The downtown is still practically as he platted it. Mills is best remembered, however, for the boundary dispute with Mexico over the Chamizal tract and for the Mills Building in El Paso. As the American boundary commissioner he refused to accept the 1911 arbitration agreement that gave the El Paso Chamizal to Mexico. The Mills Building began as the Grand Central Hotel, which Mills constructed in 1883. When the hotel burned, he replaced it with the Mills Building in 1911, at that time the largest concrete monolith in the world. Today it is no longer the highest building in El Paso, but it remains a major El Paso landmark. Source: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmi36 Image Description: Black and white photograph of General Anson Mills is shown. He stands to pose for the photo with his body and face slightly at an angel facing away. The image is taken from Mills thighs, up to his head where he wears a decorated military suit. The suit has six sets of buttons coming down his chest and several badges and pins to the left of his chest. Mills also wears shoulder pads and a belt as to complete his military look. His hair can be seen white from his long beard that hangs only from his chin and his multi shaded mustache. His hair is parted at the side and of white color.

Area: Central / Downtown

Source: El Paso County Historical Society

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

Vaquero Sculpture

Fiberglass sculpture, formerly in placed in front of El Paso ...

Cleveland Square Project

Warning signs for the Cleveland Square landscaping project, ...

Old Advertisements, Mills Ave.

204 Mills Ave., wall exposed during demolition of neighboring ...

Train Depot - 2013

Railroad Museum - 2013

Union Plaza - 2013

Photograph of Union Plaza - location downtown El Paso, Texas - ...

USBC 2015

Convention Center 2015

USBC Ribbon Cutting 2010

Convention Center

USBC Women's Championship 2010

Convention Center 2010

Christmas Fair 2013

Convention Center 2013

Christmas in Downtown El Paso

Downtown 2013 - Downtown El Paso, Texas.

The Grocery Gallery

Shot of the outside of the Grocery Gallery in the downtown, ...

Haunted House Cast - El Paso, Texas

Cast of the Haunted House from the El Paso Public Library Main ...

Swallowtail Butterfly

Swallowtail butterfly feeding on orange Bird of Paradise ...

Duke University Band - El Paso, Texas

Duke University Band played at the Sunbowl Luncheon in 2014. It ...

Tentacles Take Over

Art installation at 2014 Chalk the Block event.

Social Distortion at Tricky Falls

Social Distortion plays for a huge crowd at Tricky Falls in ...

Pedestrian Pathway

Pedestrian Pathway cost around $3,000.000.00 and was completed ...

Good food at the Chihuahua's game with good friends!

2014 Larry Brunt, Sonya Cahalan, Jackie Ramirez and Suzy Santo ...

Franklin Elementary School - El Paso, Texas

This is a photo of Franklin Elementary School which was located ...

Read: Lea

Spanish books for Young Adults on display at the El Paso Public ...

Cruising Downtown

Dane Aguilar, librarian at El Paso Public Library, Main Library, ...

TARDIS art at Chalk the Block

A chalk drawing of the TARDIS from Doctor Who. Taken at Chalk ...

Window Painting

Young adults and kids helped to paint the windows in Teen Town ...

home.search_collection