On July 11, 1871, J. Hout Minnich and John Hufbauer filed a town plat for El Paso in Sedgwick County, Kansas, establishing streets from Madison to Kay and from Water Street to Georgie Avenue, and business soon boomed. Around the turn of the century, most downtown buildings stood on Baltimore Avenue between Main and Washington streets, and many changed uses or owners as the city progressed. T. D. Wardell Hardware first occupied the first floor of Odd Fellows Hall and later moved west across the street to its own building. The Farmers & Merchants Bank building’s facade evolved over time; after a new bank building was constructed at Market and Baltimore, the original bank building was sold to El Paso Water Company, then later to a realtor, and then back to the bank before it was torn down for expansion and parking. The block between Market and Washington included barbers, dry goods, groceries, and other services, with the Sickler brothers among the proprietors. South of Market Street were the Independent Oil Company and Gertie’s Café. Near the center of the block, H. Jones General Store later became Lock Edwards Grocery and then, in the 1930s, Chet Smith Grocery and Locker; in 2019 the building housed professional offices. Just south of Kay Street stood the grain elevator and a nearby railroad depot that occupied three locations over the years. On the east side were Odd Fellows Hall and Davidson & Case Lumber Company; this site later became the Trading Post Lumber Yard for many years and in 2019 was occupied by the Baltimore Market Place. In the early days, the post office was a pigeon-hole cabinet in the front of someone’s store, then expanded and moved several times as the community grew. A hotel on Washington Street was built in the late 1800s, and the Weston family purchased it in 1904. In the very early days, a public horse watering trough stood in the middle of Baltimore at Washington. The original Catholic mission church was south at Kay Street, and the First Presbyterian Church remained at its original location to the north, though its 1879 building was replaced in 1926 and again in 1990.