History
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Ysleta Mission dates to 1681, and Ysleta, the oldest community in Texas, claims the most steadily cultivated plot of land in the U.S. Socorro Mission dates to 1682 and is regarded as the oldest active parish church in the U.S., with a unique burying ground and descansas. At San Elizario, domestic animals were first introduced and a military garrison was first established in what is now the continental U.S. by Don Juan de Onate in 1598; the presidio chapel was founded in 1777, El Paso's first courthouse was established there in 1850, and the first county jail west of San Antonio, where Billy the Kid was once confined, stood there. The once vice-regal palace and seat of Spanish government there is reportedly the oldest building in Texas, and the Salt War monument marks a short and bloody civil conflict. Cordova Island, a 385-acre tract lying north of the Rio Grande, is part of Mexico and was once a smugglers haven. In 1899, beginning at the Peyton Pacing Co. plant, a channel was dug eastward across the heel of the horseshoe-shaped Cordova Bend to relieve flooding, leaving the original riverbed as the boundary. El Paso, formerly known as Magoffinsville and Franklin, was incorporated as a city in 1873. El Paso County was established in 1850, and in 1960 El Paso and Juarez were the largest cities on the U.S.-Mexican border, with a combined population of 571,390.
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El Paso, Texas · United States
