TRACKS OF MODERNITY:

MEXICAN MIGRATION TO
EL PASO, TEXAS 1880-1910

El Paso circa 1880, Wikipedia

APRIL 16, 2016

History Seminar 001

El Paso, a city in climate and geographical sense, should not exist. The city lies on
desert land that has only one spring of life, the Rio Grande River. The Rio Grande stretches from
Colorado into the Gulf of Mexico. The great distance the Rio Grande travels to accomplish this
swells its significance. El Paso is tucked away from the north by the Franklin Mountains, rocky
with white and brown stones The Franklin Mountains are an obstacle that make El Paso an
isolated city from the north. The Rio Grande River is key to the survival of El Paso, Texas. The
Rio Grande's strength is not from it size of width. The strength comes from the long eternal flow
of water it possesses. The Rio Grande is the natural border between the United States,
specifically Texas, and Mexico. Before the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) the Rio Grande
was the river that separated the northern frontera(frontier) Mexico, from its further modern
region of central Mexico (south). After the war, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo(February 2,
1848) created two settlements, the north bank of the river became a formal American settlement.
The new El Paso town was pulled apart from the Old El Paso del Norte village(Spanish colonial
supply station) on the Mexican side south of the Rio Grande(Currently Juarez, Mexico).1 The
Frontier landscape of El Paso is a rough and rugged land to live in. El Paso served as merely a
supply station during the Spanish colonial era. The Pueblo Revolt in the New Mexico Territory
in 1690 turned El Paso into a base camp to retake the Spanish colonial province.2 The Pueblo
Revolt fashioned refugees who fled to El Paso and began to settle. The refugees would become
El Paso's first informal citizens. They were mostly Mestizos, a race that is a mix of Spanish and
Native American ancestry. (Mestizos are Mexicans, my essay will cut this culture into two,
Mexican-Americans and Mexican).It would seem that the Mestizos were the only ones who

Wikipedia, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War

David Roberts, The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion That Drove The Spaniards Out of the Southwest, (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2005) 168-170.
2

could survive the harshness of El Paso. Mestizos are a race that have been overlooked by their
un-modernistic lives, but Mestizos are resilient. Mestizos have dark brown complexions. The
dark skin is brought on by the sun that darkens the skin, this is much like the earth of El Paso,
dark, brown, vast, gentle, dry and overlooked. The beauty of the earth-brown El Paso is often
overshadowed by exotic beauties of the world like sandy beaches, wondrous water-falls, and
cascading mountains with great divides. It is the modest aura of El Paso that contains its beauty.
The flat dry lands are calm and easy. The weather is hot in the day and humid in the evenings.
The slow moving Rio Grande is like the town itself, slow to catch up with the world's pace, but
simple and beautiful. It was not until the convergence of railways after United States' victory
over Mexico that El Paso began to materialize as a city. The colonial pit-stop was then
transferred into an old western type of town with saloons, hotels, rail-stations, and electricity.
The convergence of railways would begin the age of migration and modernization of El Paso.
The apex of four railways contributed to the migration of Mexicans to the city of El Paso, Texas
as a hub, and settlement for a large Mexican population.3

Historiography
Historians have concentrated on the social and labor aspects of Mexican migration. I have
built on what three authors have written about. I will concentrate my information on how the
railway system in the 1880s shaped the Mexican migration into the city of El Paso, Texas. The
three books I have reviewed are Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border
by Rachel St. John and Beyond La Frontera: The History of Mexico-U.S. Migration by Mark

Wikipedia, El Paso, Texas, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso,_Texas

Overmyer-Velzquez. In Line in the Sand, St. John goes into detail of border disputes and
boundaries that were drawn up by the Mexican and American governments. The author details
information from the era I am doing research on, 1880-1910, but her work is focused on shaping
the border, not the effects of the railroad plays on migration. The second book, Beyond La
Frontera, the first chapter by Juan Mora-Torres, detailed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
(February 2, 1848) and the first "waves" of Mexican migrants to the United States.4 Juan MoraTorres, the second chapter writer in Beyond La Frontera goes into great detail about the
economics and labor migration of Mexicans to America during the late nineteenth century and
early twentieth century. Torres discussed the importance of the railway systems like the Southern
Pacific, AT&SF RR (Santa Fe, New Mexico railroad) and the Sonora Railroad in Mexico. Torres
gave a start to what my research will entail. Torres uses the railroad to tell the story of migrant
labor, and American exploitation of that labor. St. John concentrated research on border controls
and the effects they had on Americans and Mexican migrants. Gregory Rodriguez in his book
Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds is the closest I have read that parallels my
research. Rodriguez also used some El Paso newspapers like The Lone Star in his research. I will
use Rodriguez as a foundation of information to build upon. My investigation will focus on
migration of Mexicans to El-Paso, Texas in 1888-1905, and why they stood in the city as a result
of the railways and labor.
St. John introduced me to resources of how the land boundaries were drawn, and context
of Mexican migration pre-1884 and post 1900. St. John also has a very good map of the railway
system and the directions that it was being built. Overmyer, and specifically Torres and Gutierrez

Mark Overmyer-Velzquez, Beyond La Fronterra: The History of Mexico-U.S. Migration. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2011) xxiii

have good economic and labor movements of both Mexicans and Americans. Torres dives into
the poverty and exploitations of the Mexican workers. I will use the Torres' chapter in Beyond La
Frontera to provide scope of what went on during the era of my investigation. My primary
sources will include three different types. The first are newspaper articles from the 1880s to
1902. The second is census data from 1904 that has railway data, passenger data, and specifics
that will sharpen my essay. Third is an economic book written by William J. Lauck in 1907
about the Panic of 1893. The book is very close to my investigated era, so it has a close time
perspective of how and why the Panic occurred.
Panic of 1893
Where there is Panic there is migration. The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression
that was felt all over the world. The world had been interconnected through trade for several
centuries at this time. The Panic hit the United States especially hard because of several reasons.
The sudden decrease in the gold reserves and foreign investments caused a nation-wide
economic depression. The depression caused unemployment at rates higher than ten percent.
Processes in the United States Congress in the 1870s up to the 1890s negatively converged. For
instance, the Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which moved the United States economy to a gold
standard. Due to various investments gone bad, notably agriculture, and the transfer of silver to
gold, caused the Panic of 1893. The decrease of gold in the federal reserve decreased to just
under one hundred million dollars, which caused a dramatic price drop in silver. Suddenly, silver
credits given to land owners and businesses to stop silver circulation by the government lost their
value. There was a significant demand for gold to by the federal government causing the Panic of
1893. The United States did what the world was beginning to do economically.

The leading industrial nations of the world, like France, England and Germany, started to
move away from silver dominated currency. The United States government passed the Sherman
Silver Purchase Act of 1890. The act promised to buy 4.5 million in silver every month, in
exchange for paper credits. This caused the price of Silver to decrease from 89 cents per ounce to
62 cents per ounce. As a result of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, silver mines shut down, and
rail road expansion decreased. Union Pacific stocks plummeted from 39 dollars per share to 18
dollars per share. AT&T Santa Fe dropped from 34 dollars per share to 10, the drops occurred in
one day. Earlier in the year the gold reserve dropped below one hundred million dollars. After
the economic panic was over, there was a reemergence in the United States economy and railway
investments. The railroad industry was 15 to 20 percent of the United States' investments in the
1880s. The expansion west was a result of tens of thousands of rail lines constructed.
Immigration became a necessity to the United States labor force. The migration of Mexicans to
El Paso,Texas were a direct result of the United States' investments in railroads during and after
the Panic of 1893. The migration took on different waves, but along the waves Mexicans
migrated to El Paso for several reasons. The correlation of Mexican migration consisted of gold
and silver mining, labor, agriculture, and industrial labor. The migration occurred because of the
access of four specific railroads; the Sonora railroad in Mexico, the AT&T Santa Fe railroad in
the New Mexico Colorado territories, the Southern Pacific railway that headed west, and the
Mexican Central Railway (a direct route to Mexico City through El Paso). The Panic of 1893 is
the starting point for Mexican migration in El Paso. The three to five years after the Panic of
1893 led to an increase of investment, and value of the railways. The United States' rejuvenated
economy caused a boom in labor, agriculture, and industry from the economic scare in 1893. The

Panic of 1893 caused the United States to look closer on economic expansion, rather than
constriction. The railroads were the first to benefit from this new economic development.

he Railroads
There are four railroads that converge on the Texas city of El Paso, and the neighboring
Mexican city Cuidad Juarez. As stated before, the four railroads were the Sonora, AT&T Santa
Fe, the Southern Pacific, and the Mexican Central railways. Gilbert G. Gonzales writes in
Beyond La Frontera, "Railroads were the first of the American operations to employ Mexican
labor, which by 1900 numbered 140,000." The willingness of American companies to employ
the Mexican population helped catalyze a migratory pattern after the Panic of 1893. El Paso was
the hub for many migrant railway workers. Two specifics can be investigated. One is the stretch
of rails in 1880 only reached the center of Texas and did not connect to the rest of the west.
Borderlands railroads, 1880s (map by Ezra Zeitler) Courtesy of Line in the Sand, p 68

Second is the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the act prohibited Chinese immigrants for entering
the U.S., and left a gaping hole in the United States railroad labor pool. These two events led to
the demand for Mexican railway labor.
The Central Mexican railroad was the railway that connected Ciudad Juarez and El Paso.
The formation became reality in the late 1890s. The El Paso Herald wrote in 1896 about the
construction. "The Corralitos track is now laid for ten kilometers out of Juarez, and as soon as
the bridge gang has built the overhead crossing of the Mexican Central, the track layers will
shoot out for the Corralitos country at the rate of a mile per day. The grading is completed for
nearly fifty miles, and the contractors are busy pushing on as fast as possible. Chief Engineer
Fewson Smith is sure the locomotive's whistle will be heard in Corralitos by next June". The
Corralitos region is in Neuvo Leon, Mexico close to Brownsville, Texas. The Corralitos railway
connected the north-east Mexican region with El Paso. The Corralitos railway connection
strengthened the bond between Mexican movement north, and eventually lead them to El Paso.
The Sister Cities
There were two cities that bordered Mexico and United States that had been established
early in the Spanish colonial era. The Spanish colonials used the Rio Grande River as a natural
boundary for these cities. The cities were El Paso and Juarez. Before the 1880s and the land
concessions the Mexican government agreed to after their defeat in the Spanish-American
war(Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo). The town of El Paso became a border-town, and a hub for
Mexican migration north. The social and economic function of El Paso is described well in the
book, Line in the Sand, by Rachel St. John. The writers stated that,

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The founding of those towns after 1880 [El Paso and Laredo] reflected the growing
importance of the border in emerging trans-border economy. The boundary line ran right
through the middle of an increasingly productive landscape of copper mines, ranches, and
irrigated agriculture. All of these businesses required customs facilities, rail connections,
supplies, business support, and other services for their owners and employees. Border
towns became home to all of these but more than that they also became homes to border
people. By early twentieth century, twin border cities were both the economic and social
hubs of binational borderlands communities.5

St. John provides an overall perspective of how El Paso operated. El Paso was a hub that became
a center of four major Railway lines. After the 1880s, the railway lines provided faster
transportation for Mexican migrants to travel through-out the United States to the industries that
needed labor.
The Sonora rail-line and the convergence of Mexican and American industries
In a quote taken by National Geographic Magazine, stated by the United States former
foreign minister John Foster. "Mexico is now bound to the United States by the iron ties of four
railroads." The remark by Foster was revealed in Beyond La Frontera by Gilbert G. Gonzalez.
Another example of American business and Mexican partnership is stated in Beyond La
Frontera.
Rather than connecting Mexico internally as Presidents Lerdo and Benito Juarez
anticipated, railroads extended American lines from the northern border to
Mexico's interior to move goods into and out of the country. Designed, planned,
and constructed by Americans, railroads connected Mexico with U.S. industrial
production and moreover assumed power "over the infrastructure of the country"
Telegraph lines, for example, were constructed by the railroad entities and

Rachel St. John, Line in the Sand a History of the Western U.S. - Mexico Border, (New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 2011) 83

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accompanied the rails that placed Mexico in immediate contact with the United
States.6

The two examples which were centered around the 1890s to the 1910s indicate the relationship
of the United States business and Mexico labor. One, the United States needed labor and second,
the United States needed specifically Mexican labor to achieve business success. The fact that
interior Mexico was connected to the massive transnational railway network in the United States,
allowed for more Mexican migration from deep within Mexico, and El Paso was at the apex. The
failed railroad construction in Sonora Mexico(1890-1910), factored into the Mexican migratory
importance to El Paso.
The Sonora state of Mexico lays south of California, New Mexico and the Arizona
borders. The state of Sonora, with its railway, could have taken migrants from El Paso, due to its
proximity to the states and their railways (see Page 5 for clarity). Due to the problems of railway
construction, the Sonora railway was behind the Central Mexican railway. In Fugitive
Landscapes by Samuel Truett he stated, "Many saw the Sonora Railway a long-awaited
liberation from an embattled past."7 The optimism of the Sonora railway became diminished.
The internal strife with physical and dangerous labor of the Sonora mines, and the indigenous
conflicts (wars) de-railed the profits businesses could extract from the Sonora railway. The
winner was the railway that connected Mexico City with El Paso. In Beyond La Frontera Gilbert
G. Gonzalez emphasized,
It was neither the first time nor the last that people overestimated the power of
technology to subdue the frontier. The Sonora Railway ushered in a spurt of
investment in the mid-1880s, but conflicts with Apaches and Yaquis together
with drought and an epidemic of yellow fever slowly pushed investors
backThe Mexican Central Railroad between Mexico City and El Paso and the
Mexican National Railroad, which ran north to Laredo, Texas, were more
6

Overmyer-Velasquez, Beyond La Frontera, 31

Samuel Truett, Fugitive: The Forgotten History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2006) 59
7

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profitable. When they were finished in 1884 and 1888, they opened a much
larger region to investors.8

The scope had been cleaned. The Mexican railway north that ran through El Paso was the path of
trade and migration that would be traveled.
The Memphis, El Paso, and South Pacific Railroads
In the year 1854 there was an act that was being discussed by the Texas governing board.
In the act, there were specifications of how the Southern Pacific railway would be built. The
specifics include the number of miles of rail lines that were to be laid each year. The amount that
was contracted was stated to be five miles the first year, then twenty miles per year after that
until completion. The act was essentially a contract that was being discussed between the state
and the entity that would take on the operation. The entity at that time was unknown, but the
governing board had a detailed plan of the railway operation. The act shows the interest of Texas
to start connecting El Paso to the rest of the eastern rail lines. 9 The Texas state governing boards
act to incorporate the Memphis, El Paso, and Southern Pacific Railway lines, approved 7
February 1854 was the starting point of the Mexican migration to El Paso Texas.
Mining and infrastructure
During the early 1880s and late 1910s the industry of mining ran strong. The El Paso
Herald in 1896 posted in its December issue in the "Mining notes" section that, "The Las
Amarillias mines [in] Sonora are producing $110,000 to $120,000 monthly". 10 The amount of
ore to produce this amount of gold weighed in the hundreds of tons. Trains were the method of

Ibid., 59-60
"Memphis, El Paso and Pacific Railroad. American Railway Times" (1849-1859), Mar 23, 1854, 6, 12,
www.proquest.com
10
El Paso Daily Herald, Dec 4th 1896 volume. XVI No. 218, 1 http://0infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/
9

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transportation to smelting factories in Pueblo, Colorado, then in Monterrey, Mexico and Santa
Barbera, California. The Guggenhiem family were the powerhouse in the smelting industry.
They operated American Smelting and Refining Co. (ASARCO) during the 1880s to 1900s.11
The gold mines sent the ore to ASARCO smelting factories. ASARCO extracted the precious
metals, gold, silver, copper and iron. It was smelting industries like ASARCO that made
lucrative amounts of money. The labor they needed to make this money only added to labor
needs in the United States.
Not only was gold going through the railways, iron ore was speeding through the lines.
There is a section in the notes of the El Paso Herald in 1896, that described the statistics of the
amount of coal that was sent to El Paso. "The South Western Coal and Iron Company is shipping
two cars of iron ore per day to El Paso". This news article might seem irrelevant, but iron ore is
melted and turned into steel. Iron using the Bessemer process, which blew air into pig iron before
it hardened fashioned Steel. Steel was usually used to make railways, but El Paso's infrastructure
was growing as well. In El Paso, buildings had begun to erect at a rapid pace to keep up with the
population. Fancy hotels, city buildings, and factories were beginning to be built. For instance,
the El Paso Daily News in 1902 had an article that described the construction and opening of the
El Paso Carnegie Library. The library, the paper claimed, would soon be built in a elegant
Spanish mission style.12 An exciting event at the time, imagine the modernity of the Carnegie
name, and the library to hold modern learning. El Paso had indeed arrived.
Now the establishment of building material was generated. There was a need for
experience Mexican miners to extract the precious metals. The Mexican labor was skilled, they

11
12

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/40/Grupo-Mexico-S-A-de-C-V.html
El Paso Daily News, March 31st 1902 http://0-infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/

13

had been mining in Mexico since the Spanish colonial era. Gonzalez in Beyond La Frontera
wrote, "By the 1890s mining was reinvigorated. This demanded a significant amount of labor.
Within a decade or so Mexican labor numbered 30,000 to 40,000 Mexican migrants"13 The
lucrative mining industry flourished again after the Panic of 1893.The price of silver was
beginning to stabilize, and gold mining was beginning to gain some profitable momentum.
Mexican labor had begun to be prized. How would the United States attract this labor pool?
Migration and Population
The Mexican laborer came from various parts of Mexico. The Mexican Central Railway
provided a perfect medium for enganchadores or in English, people who lure. The people who
lure were the American recruiters who traveled along the Mexican Central Railway to interior
Mexican states like Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacn, San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas. The
migration of Mexican workers to El Paso is describe by the historian Rodriguez in Mongrels,
Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds, wrote,
By 1910, nearly two-thirds of Mexican migrants had headed for Texas. From
1890 to 1910, the ethnic Mexican population of the Lone Star State more than
doubled, and 45 percent were foreign-born. Most Mexican migrants, no matter
where they were ultimately passed through the booming metropolis of El Paso,
which by 1920 was half-Mexican. 14

The recruiters did a fine job getting the Mexican population to migrate north. By 1920 half of the
population in El Paso was Mexican. There is a common misconception that Mexican migrants
were poor and desperate plebeians in the search of a better life. The migrants were in need, but
they were promised fantastical wage rates and lifestyles. The Mexican migrants, once in

13

Overmyer-Velazquez, Beyond La Fronterra, 33

Gregory Rodriguez, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race
in America, (New York: Vintage Books, 2007) 132
14

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America, soon experienced less than what was promised by the American recruiters. The
migrants became enganchado (hooked).15
The enganchado Mexican migrants, not being able to feasibly go back to Mexico for
various reasons. The reasons ranged from debt, complacency, to stolen land from the Mexican
government. The Mexican migrants began to settle. Rodriguez from Mongrels, Bastards, and
Vagabonds, wrote about a residents observation in El Paso, " 'Ten years ago our Mexican
migrants were chiefly men', one railroad official observed. 'It was rare to see a woman among
those who came throughAlmost 1900, men who had been in the United States and returned to
Mexico began to bring back their families with them". 16 Mexican migrants who would work
seasonally in railroad projects, or building El Paso infrastructure, began to bring their families
with them. The Mexican migration patterns flow shifted, and the woman and children started to
migrate from interior Mexico as well.
To get a scope of the number of people in the El Paso area, the El Paso Herald pointed
out the increasing population in 1888. "The great movements now on feet will make El Paso a
place of 50,000 people this is no idle boast, but is clear to any thinking man."17 This article does
make reference to the movement of feet of the people. It would only be sensible to deduce that
this is a direct dig at the Mexican migration from Juarez. Because the author writes about the
great movement on foot, the quote is meant to describe the influx of Mexicans from Juarez. More
importantly the article gave a range of how large this frontier town was becoming. Early
estimates put the population at a mere 10,000 people in the 1870s. The population in El Paso

15

Ibid., 133
Ibid.,133
17
El Paso Daily Herald Dec 30th, 1888 Vol, VII N0, 266, 1, http://0-infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/
16

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could only be estimated, there was no full census data that has been discovered in historical
studies before the 1890s.18
The thing about El Paso is that it is a twin city. The Mexican city of Cuidad Juarez is just
across the Rio Grande, a walkable distance. El Paso had always been used as a supply station
throughout colonial Spanish era, and began to grow during the Mexican occupation. El Paso was
only starting to become a population hub, and mini-city in the mid-1800s. By the 1880s El Paso
became the center of the three American railways. El Paso became a "Boomtown", Juarez on the
other hand was stuck in a time vortex, and remained an old sleepy town that never caught up to
the modernization of El Paso. Juarez was mostly a stopping point on the Mexican migrant's
journey to labor. The El Paso Daily Herald, Sunday edition, in 1888 was full of ads, articles with
hints of modernity. There was an article to advertise The Grand Central, a new hotel, which was
described as "strictly first class". In comparison the El, Paso Spanish Newspaper La
Democracia, which reported on all Juarez news, had an ad free front page, and had a very
traditional newspaper look. Articles with short news information and organized well. The
difference between the two, were strikingly different. The El Paso Daily Herald was modern, La
Democracia was fashionably left behind.19
By 1902, the railways were running with logistical accuracy. In the El Paso Daily News,
the railroad time table had departure times from El Paso to Chicago leaving at 8 pm daily. The
Texas Pacific railway departed at 6 am for the east coast. The Santa Fe Railway departed for
Chicago at 9:15 pm, the Mexican Central Railway departed from El Paso to Mexico City at 9:40
am. The southern pacific railroad departed at 7:00 am to go west. All the railways listed in the El

18

"El Paso, Texas", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso,_Texas

Sunday Herald Sunday December 1888 Vol, VIII number 266, La Democracia, Enero De 1906, Vol, 1, number 7
http://0-infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/
19

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Paso Daily News traveled seven directions. One direction led directly to Mexico interior, by the
Mexican Central Railway. The others directions went west, north and east through United States
territories. The lattice of the El Paso railways, and their consistency, portray a network of
movement through El Paso from Mexico, and into the United States. By 1902 a system of
migration was set up and the migration of Mexicans were drawn to El Paso as a hub. 20

Labor
Labor in general was a lucrative business for United States railway companies. There
were labor recruiting agencies in El Paso that would wait for Mexican migrants as they entered
the city. The labor recruiters, which have been recorded as fourteen in the El Paso area, five were
reported to have transported over sixteen thousand men between the years 1908 and 1909. 21 The
hacienda system, during the late 1880s, expelled Mexican land owners into economic depression
by the thousands. The hacienda system was a governmental system gone rogue. It was originally
meant to help farmers gain land back from the Spanish colonial era. The Mexican government
began to create high taxes on small farm plots, and the small farmers were ultimately displaced
into urban areas in Mexico. Because of this economic depression in Mexican agricultural land,
there was a surplus of Mexican expellees willing to work in United States industries. Over
300,000 people were displaced by the Mexican authoritarian Diaz regime (late 1880s and 1890s)
and, "with no alternatives, peasants began a migratory trail to towns and cities, becoming a
surplus population and an enormous labor pool"22 The perfect timing between the connectivity of

20

El Paso Daily News Thursday July 3 1902. 1, http://0-infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/

Overmyer-Velazquez, Beyond La Fronterra, 38
22
Overmyer-Velazquez, Beyond La Fronterra, 33
21

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rail-stations in El Paso and, the displaced Mexican farmers, created a labor vacuum that sucked
up Mexican labor into El Paso. The newly formed railway network, created a web of railways to
disperse Mexican labor throughout the United States.
Census data
While researching my topic, I had investigated the United States census archives, to
complete the puzzle I had started. I had found data that has the amount of passengers that
traveled throughout the United States by railways. The amount represents total passengers, so
that would entail people who traveled multiple times and small distances. Nonetheless the results
are staggering. Also the census data had the amount of miles of railway Texas had. Texas had a
total of 11, 324 miles of railways as of the year 1903. Passengers carried totaled 523,176,508 in
1899 to 694,891,535 in 1903. The average number of passengers per train were forty one
individuals in 1899 to forty six in 1903. The average journey per passenger in 1899 was twenty
seven miles, and in 1903 it was thirty miles.23 The movement of people was fast and at a grand
scale. A significant change from stage couch rides that would take days and weeks to travel. The
peculiar thing about this data and the immigration data that I had researched, showed Mexico
immigration only posted 1895 migrants. The records show only 150 Mexican immigrants in
1896, ninety one individuals in 1897, 107 in 1898, 161 in 1899, 237 in 1900, 347 in 1901, 709 in
1902, 528 in 1903, and 1009 in 1904. 24 In contrast I will use the data that was kept on the
Austria-Hungary immigrants. In 1899 immigration was at 62,491 individuals. In 1900 114,847
individuals., in 1901 113,390 ind., in 1902, 171, 989 ind., in 1903 205,001, and in 1904 177,156

23

Department of Labor and Commerce, "Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1904 Twenty-seventh number"
(Washington Government Printing Office, 1905,) 404-405, www.census.gov
24
Ibid., pg. 425-426

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individuals.25 The results of this data suggests two questions, how many Mexican migrants
moved into America? Why were census data kept diligently in other areas, but not the Mexican
border?
I have come across one clue that would answer the latter question. In the El Paso
newspaper The Evening Telegram 1896, it stated, "Immigration inspector James Behan was
detained out west for business, and will not return before Monday next."26 The local notes
provided a sense of trivial immigration regulations were at that time. The news reports on one
immigrant inspector, and does not cite a replacement. Behan must have been the only one, since
his departure was newsworthy. This correlates to the non-existent immigration data from the
Mexican borderlands. The migration of large amount of Mexicans did happen, in the early 1900s
there will be evidence that proves this in the newspapers. Labor and the dependence on this large
immigrant labor created an ignored system of migrant tracking in the late 1890s and the early
1900s.
Social Conditions
As a result of the Mexican migration to El Paso, there were certain inequalities that
materialized within the Mexican communities. The native born, and Mexican-Americans that
were granted citizenship by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, became a portentous ethnicity.
Rodriguez in Mongrel, Bastards, and Vagabonds, explains the inter-ethnic division, the native
born Mexican-Americans were called "ponchos, an insult meaning 'watered down Mexican" by
the new migrant Mexicans. The migrant Mexicans were called Cholos by the upper native
Mexican Americans. Cholos is a derogatory Spanish word that means dog, or in human relations

25
26

Ibid., pg. 425

"The Evening Telegram" March 20, 1896 No, 332, 4

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a social vagrant. The social inequality created fractions within the Mexican community in El
Paso. The prejudices galvanized the Spanish speaking Mexican migrants compared to the newly
Americanized native born El Paso population. There was a social rift that had been created
between two cultures that shared the same ancestry. There was a social clash; the native-born
versus the migrants.27
The social inequalities Mexican Americans and Mexicans had established were not that
uncommon. The desire to become American citizens with governmental and social rights, were
beginning to become vital. The Mexican-Americans that were established by the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo were trying to distance themselves from the Mexican migrants. There is
always an unseen force pulling one ethnicity against its ethnic sibling to gain acceptance to a
higher standing society. Often the higher society must be assimilated to that higher society, and
cultural traditions are lost, integrated, or forgotten. In El Paso's case, it was the MexicanAmericans who wanted to create a stronger bond with American social classes for higher
economic and social standings. The resentments only fractured and alienated migrants and forced
them to create social enclaves, and migrate to different cities. Migrants not only had to deal with
the prejudices of the Mexican-Americans, but also with the Anglo Americans who were often
employing them.
Conclusion
In my research I have discovered that there were numerous factors that created the
Mexican migration to the town of El Paso. There was a labor shortage due to governmental
immigration road blocks like the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Panic of 1893 proved to be a lull in

27

Rodriguez, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds, 128

20

American industry, but immediately after the panic, barely five years. The resurgence in the
labor industry included agriculture, mining, and railroad building. The growth of the railroad
industry after the Panic created a massive need for labor. The Mexican people, who were in need
of work, due to hacienda systems forcing people to urban areas, became hooked in by American
recruiters who promised wealth and prosperity. I did not concentrate much on the amount of
social inequalities and racism that occurs due to the Mexican migration, but it was in existence.
The important fact that should be taken away from this essay is the valuable role the railroad
industry had in the Mexican migration to El Paso. The role took on two dimensions. The first
dimension was the fast, and mass transit that was available after the completion of the four major
railways, the Sonora, Southern Pacific, AT&T Santa Fe, and the Central Mexican railways. The
second dimension is the connectivity between the United States and Mexico. This connectivity
allowed labor to be transported internationally. The misconception that we as Americans have is
that migrants are desperate, and are in need of American security. The Mexican migration during
1880s - 1910s was a mixture of Mexican labor needs and American labor needs. The Mexican
migration during this era was more beneficial to the railroad industry who recorded large profits,
and exploited a labor force that became hooked into American society.

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Annotated Bibliography
Primary Sources
Department of Labor and Commerce, "Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1904 Twentyseventh number" Prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Under the direction of the
Secretary of Commerce and labor, (Washington Government Printing Office, 1905,)
404-405, www.census.gov.
The archival data that I received from the census website was immense. The Statistics
that I concentrated on were the passenger cars, the price per person, and the amount of
miles traveled per person. The data also included the ethnicity of passengers.
El Paso Daily Herald, Dec 4th 1896 volume. XVI No. 218, 1, http://0infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/
The El Paso Daily Herald was a printed newspaper in the El Paso, area. The information
in this primary source gave the happening around the town. The paper had mining notes
and railroad arrivals and departures. There were numerous ads, and local happenings.
El Paso Daily Herald, Dec 30th, 1888 Vol, VII N0, 266, 1, http://0infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/
El Paso Daily News, Thursday July 3 1902. 1, http://0-I
infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/
The El Paso Daily News in 1902 was more modern than the newspapers in the 1880s.
The news began to cover world happenings like Paris and its population and gender
specifics. There was also an increase in ads, about two more pages worth of ads.

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The Evening Telegram, March 20, 1896 No, 332, 4 ,http://0infoweb.newsbank.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/

The Evening Telegram was a very modernistic newspaper that I used to show how
progressive El Paso Became during the late 1890s. There were 10-20 ads towards the last
pages of the newspaper.
American Railway Times, "Memphis, El Paso and Pacific Railroad". (1849-1859), Mar 23, 1854,
6, 12, www.proquest.com
This article that I found gave the pretext as to what the plan was to build the railway that
was to be connected to El Paso. There was an active dialog between the railway industry
and the government to get these railways built, and this was the start of the dialogs that
manifested in the 1870s.
Secondary Sources
Daniel E. Brannen, Jr., Rebecca Valentine, "Panic of 1893." UXL Encyclopedia of U.S.
History. Sonia Benson, Vol, 6, (Detroit: 2009) 1194-1198, Gale Virtual Reference
Library, Web, 9 Apr, 2016.
I found this article online on the Auraria library website. This article provided a great
overview of the Panic of 1893. The statistics of unemployment and gold and silver rates
were good.
Dr. Olson-Raymer, Gayle "History 111 - Industrialization, Urbanization, and Immigration in
the Gilded Age" http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist111/industrial.html.

23

This was a webpage that was set up for a history 111 course. The website had a very
good overview of the gilded age, and of the railway systems. The website gave me on
over view of the industry and how it was operated. The pictures were also very helpful.
David, Roberts, The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion That Drove The Spaniards Out of the
Southwest, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
An excellent book on the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico in the 1690s. The book has a
very good narrative dialog. Roberts chronicles the revolt masterfully and it comes to life
like an epic.
Rodriguez, Gregory. Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration
and the Future of Race in America. New York: Vintage Books, 2008.
This book by Gregory Rodriguez goes into great detail about the social aspects of
Mexican immigrations in various southwestern and western communities in the United
States. The writer does have good information on the railroad systems, and uses good
examples for newspapers that I had found in my research. For example, the writer cites
The Lone Star, which is an El Paso paper published during the early 1900s.
St. John, Rachel. Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.- Mexico Border. Princeton
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Line in the Sand is a great resource for the railroads that were in Sonora, Mexico, and the
Santa Fe railroad. St. John goes into great detail how these railroads impacted Native
Americans, and the border friction that was becoming apparent in the early 1900s. St.
John wrote about post border controls that were enacted around the 1920s, but also delves
into some of the precursors that happened to shape the borders in the late 1800s.

24

Truett, Samuel. Fugitive Landscapes: The Forgotten History of the U.S.- Mexico Borderlands.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
Truett provides great detail of organizations that littered the borderlands. These
organizations were Mexican and American governmental orgs. And Non-governmental
orgs. Truett mostly tells the story of conflicts, and how they were begun and ended.
Overmyer-Velzquez, Mark. Beyond La Fronterra: The History of Mexico-U.S. Migration.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2011
Beyond La Fronterra is a compilation of essays that chronologically tell the story of
Mexican Migration to the United States. The book spans for over 160 years of
migrations, and each chapter has a different author. This book had an entire essay on the
1800s to the 1920s which is the era I was concentrating on. The El Paso section
provided a magnifying glass into the migration to the El Paso area.

Wikipedia, El Paso, Texas, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso,_Texas

I used Wikipedia to get the overall feel of El Paso, and it had a beautiful picture that was
posted online. The photo was by F. Parker a photographer in the 1880s. The site that
Wikipedia got it from was. http://historical.ha.com/itm/photography/important-earlyalbumen-photograph-of-el-paso-texas-by-f-parker/a/6035-47242.s, a very good source
of historic photography.