The El Paso Boosters and the Texas Legislature

During 1931 and 1932, the Guadalupe Mountain Park Association functioned as a branch of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce. E. H. Simons, manager of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce, served as secretary for the Association. An avid booster who stood by the idea of a park in the Guadalupes for a number of years, Simons approached the chairman of the Texas highway commission about the possibility of establishing a park in the southern Guadalupes. He proposed acquiring part of the ranch belonging to the Grisham-Hunter Corporation with funds raised by a county bond issue. The chairman agreed that if El Paso County would donate the park site to the State of Texas, the highway commission would build roads to scenic points within the park to a total cost of $500,000. Simons then secured an option to purchase the 33,000-acre proposed park site for a total of $200,000. Undoubtedly aware of the unreliability of funds available at the state level for park management and maintenance, Simons envisioned that after the state had developed the park it would donate it to the national park system.

Although Texas had set up a state parks board in the mid-1920s, by 1930 it still did not have a state park system. Early in 1931, anticipating the access to the Guadalupe Mountains afforded by the new highways, the Texas legislature considered a bill that would have provided $300,000 to acquire land for a park in the Guadalupe Mountains. The Davis Mountain Park was proposed in the same bill. In March, the Texas State Parks Board made movies of the proposed park areas to use for publicity purposes. Once again, however, enthusiasm did not carry the issue; the proposed park bill died from lack of support.


Content adapted from Judith K. Fabry's "Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Administrative History," published in 1988.