Soaking up the sights in Sun City…. El Paso

For a zero day off the bike El Paso surpassed itself. We had great architecture, a presidential political rally, bike racing in the streets, art, jazz, great food and historic art deco trams which got me so excited I could barely contain myself.

The day started at the Beto O’Rourke political rally where the El Paso politician launched his bid to be named the democratic candidate for the 2020 race to the White House. Bizarrely, while I rubbed shoulders with the Beto crowd, Terry, who’d got fed up waiting for him to appear, left early and found himself mingling with the rival Trump supporters.

The city proved to be treasure trove of architectural wonders with many of the landmark buildings designed by the architectural firm Trost and Trost which was responsible for hundreds of buildings in El Paso, West Texas, Northern Mexico, New Mexico and Arizona.

From 1909 to 1911 the firm completed five reinforced concrete skyscrapers which changed the character of downtown El Paso. Today (I’m writing from a Texas historical marker here!) dozens of the firm’s buildings in three staes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and many buildings are still in use for the purposes for which they were designed.

Racing through the canyons created by these imposing buildings were professional cyclists, drawn to the city by the USA Crits Series for an event called the Sun City Crits. Why is El Paso nicknamed ‘The Sun City’ ? Well on average the big yellow ball puts in an appearance here for 302 days a year on average shining for 83% of the time. Nice.

The organisers of the event, which was taking place in the city for the first time, were also hoping the racing would shine a light on the part cycling could play in the future of the El Paso. There was even talk of opening the local bike shop as a hostel for Southern Tier cyclists – in the style of the Newton Bike Shop which we had stayed in while passing through Kansas on the TransAm.

And if all that wasn’t enough, we also got to ride around the city on El Paso’s historic art deco streamlined streetcars. Like many cities around the world El Paso once had a thriving tram network, but with the coming of the car the lines were gradually ripped out and by 1974 the streetcars were retired to be replaced by buses. The machines were taken to an area near to the airport where they were left to bake under the desert sun.

Four decades later, six of the streetcars were dragged back, retored and painted in each of the three historic colour schemes used on the original cars. They now run on a 4.8 mile track looping around many of the important stops around town. Not only are they are travelling work of art – but also a great way to get a whistle-stop tour of the city, so we hopped on board.

We spent the evening in a restaurant right next door to The Gardner Hotel eating fine food and listening to live jazz. A perfect end to a perfect day. 

Tomorrow it will be time to say goodbye to Texas and hello to New Mexico. El Paso has provided the perfect farewell.

Architecture:

Streetcars:

Beto rally:

Sun City Crits:

Art: