April 18, 2008
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905, U.S. (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 - 1952)
At the turn of the 19th century, El Paso was essentially a three sport town: baseball, boxing and polo (writer's note: yes, Polo). Add a smattering of horseracing, rodeo and wrestling, and the typical resident of the El Paso area had a hard time figuring out where to spend their hard-earned nickels.
From McNary in the East to Canutillo in the Upper Valley, competing Industrial baseball leagues dominated the sporting landscape. Townsfolk organized their own teams, usually sponsored by the corner apothecary or furniture shop, and rivalries that still exist today were initially ignited on the baseball diamond.
Boxing matches were held every week in venues as small as a formal dining room in the homes along Montana Avenue to the various gyms in and around the city. Boxers trained in corner gyms and fought opponents from Juarez, Chihuahua City and many other exotic points.
Polo was the sport of choice for many turn-of-the-century El Pasoans, with matches attended by Borderland residents of every economic level. Soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder with businessmen, shop keepers and smelter workers.
But it wasn't until the automobile arrived that both the city's landscape and past times changed forever. On March 28, 1900 the first automobile hit the dusty, horse-clogged streets of El Paso. Ironically, the introduction of the automobile in the Sun City was the result of a heated race between two businesses.
The Bicycle Shop of Newland and Hagan (on Texas Avenue) beat out local businessman S. J. Bloodworth by rolling out a two-person Elgin and running about town at a top speed of fifteen miles an hour. Despite his loss, Bloodworth told the El Paso Herald, "The automobile ought to be a success in El Paso and make money."
A scant nine years later, some 1,000 autos shared the highways of El Paso with horses and trolleys. The burgeoning population of cars led to several impromptu road rallies and unorganized speed contests outside of the city's limits. At the same time, nearly 1,500 miles away, four Indianapolis businessmen put the finishing touches on the nation's largest test facility, now known as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Auto enthusiasts all across the country took notice and began organizing auto clubs and eventually races.
Locally, the group that had raced on the dusty streets of far east El Paso (Montana Avenue, around Paisano) became the El Paso Automobile club. By 1912 the club entertained H.C. Drum, a national advocate of better roads and the Transcontinental Highway. As a result of his visit, the club began raising the $3,400 needed to improve the roads that would eventually connect El Paso with the Arizona Highway and the rest of Texas.
The same club organized the first El Paso Auto Convention, allowing for all the new makes and models of cars to be displayed for all El Pasoans to see. With residents flocking by rail and trolley to the show by the thousands, El Pasoans were now hooked on the automobile. Within a year of that first show, the questions about cars quickly went from 'do I purchase a four (cylinder) or six (cylinder)' to 'I wonder if my car will beat your car?'
By the mid-teens, road racing became the lead event in the Southwest, with several over-the-road races organized on a yearly basis. El Paso to Phoenix and El Paso to Artesia were the most frequented and most enjoyed routes. However there was still a hunger to replicate the type of circle track racing that was taking parts of the country by storm.
While there was no set track in the El Paso area, drivers and clubs quickly looked east and took the example of the wildly popular Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Striking a deal with the Juarez Horse Track, autos again shared a venue with horses and the venue simply became the Juarez Race Track. Drivers from Silver City (N.M.), Globe (Az.), Denver, Los Angles and other points east and west made the trek to El Paso to see whose car was better.
These once-a-month, '50 mile Free-for-alls' shared the local racing scene with a new track set up at the Rodeo Grounds, just outside of Washington Park near the city's eastern limits. Oddly enough, autos again shared the stage and the lights with horses. Both tracks survived the Mexican Revolution and America's entry into World War I; eventually pushing into the start of the Roaring 20's with elevated speeds and car counts.
Borderland motorists entered the early 1920s by reaching deeper into their pockets. While the speed limit around the area was raised from 25mph to 35 mph, the tax on all motorized vehicles rose nearly 100 percent according to the El Paso Herald. Speeding fines went up as well, from $1 to a wallet-puckering $5. However the discontent seemed to spread to the racing publics well.
Drivers were increasingly unsatisfied with the competition and the rules imposed by the El Paso Racing Association (EPRA: a sub-group in the El Paso Automobile Club) at the Juarez Track. By the mid-1920s racing at the once-glorified track was described as "uninteresting and slow."
What increased fees and dissatisfaction with the rules could not do, the Great Depression did. By the early 1930's, the Juarez track had fallen out of favor and drivers, stung by the depression, turned their attention to simple survival. Racers continued to challenge themselves though, alternating their Wednesdays by occasionally running under the lights at Washington Park and at the Juarez track. Sometime during this period, the EPRA lost favor and racing nearly died. However amid all the turmoil, the tradition of racing every Wednesday night began.
In mid-1935, with the nation in the midst of the Great Depression, the city reached a milestone. The County Tax Collector took delivery of nearly 20,000 license plates, all of which were set to be distributed in El Paso County. A few months later, a plan was set in motion to bring circle track auto racing back to the Sun City.
A new racing association, led by local auto parts businessman Walter Gold, undertook plans tor revamp the old Rodeo Field at Washington Park and make it suitable for auto racing again. After reaching an agreement with the county and city governments, Gold announced that racing would again return to El Paso. By the spring of 1936, autos again returned to the track on a Wednesday night.
The next three years featured hard and quick racing on the Rodeo Track, with at least three classes of cars competing every Wednesday night. Stock automobiles (pretty much old used cars), Modified automobiles (old used cars with fabricated panels) and Midgets (bare-bones cars, usually not more than a frame, four tires and minimal metal covering the engine and driver) tore around the dusty track to the cheers of thousands of El Pasoans.
Local businesses split their advertising dollars between the venerable Industrial Baseball league teams, the speedway and select drivers at the track. Racers and wanna-be racers from all over the Borderland built cars. (Writer's note: My grandfather and his friends even raided a scrap yard just west of the Fabens Cemetery to build a racecar). However, trouble again hovered over the track like the dusty haze cast skyward by the racecars.
On the eve of the 1939 season, the new El Paso Racing Association's insurance policy apparently lapsed. This lack of insurance sent a wave of liability-wary fear through city and county government. According to the Herald, City Clerk Collins notified the association that they had to suspend operations immediately due to the lack of insurance for the drivers and spectators.
Racing officials countered, saying they were entitled to 'five days notice' and the races were held. But the damage was done. The apparent lack of respect by the government toward Gold's, the association's and the racer's hard work lit a fuse.
Collins threat to shut the association and the track down was repeated 5 days later. The very next week Association President Walter Gold, who had personally overseen the revamping of the race track on his own dime, issued a prophetic statement.
On Thursday, June 8, 1939 Gold told the Herald's Sports page of his "plans to build a speedway just outside of city limits."
It was a statement to be repeated at various times over the next six decades by several other local businessmen, all frustrated to one degree or another, with the state of racing in the El Paso Southwest.
TO BE CONTINUED...