University of Texas at El Paso Plan
El Paso, Texas

Description: University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) plan
Other Names: Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy; Texas College of Mines; Texas Western College
Address: El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Type: educational: college, later university
Original Client: University of Texas Board of Regents
Historic Inventory: none
Date: 1916-1917
Condition: extant

Architect or Firm: Henry C. Trost
Associated Architect or Firm: Trost & Trost; Kathleen L. Worrell; Charles M. Gibson, of Gibson & Robertson
Contractors: V. E. Ware
Budget/Cost: $115,070 was the low bid of V. E. Ware; in addition, Gibson & Robertson was paid $930, and El Paso Architect Edward Kneezell was paid (probably $1150.70) for supervising construction; Trost & Trost received $3,562.45

Present Owner: University of Texas Board of Regents
Location of Drawings: El Paso Public Library, O-1, 30 ink on linen plans (some with additions in pencil), including Dormitory Building, Chemistry Building, Main Building, and power building, dated April, 1917. Sheet 1, showing the site plan, is labeled General Plot Plan, and is an ink on linen drawing, with three alternate sites for Dormitory Building added in pencil, and another building added in pencil near the corner of New York Street and North Chihuahua Street (an intersection no longer extant)
Location of Documentary Photographs: El Paso Public Library: Aultman A5512 (general view of first campus buildings, photographed late in 1917 or in 1918)

Bibliography: (1) Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht, Henry C. Trost: Architect of the Southwest(El Paso: El Paso Public Library Association, 1981), pages 64-68: narrative description of the development of the campus plan and the first buildings, describing the role of Trost & Trost, Gibson & Robertson, Kathleen L. Worrell, the University of Texas Board of Regents, and the President (Stephen Howard Worrell) and faculty of the School of Mines [including John W. (Cap) Kidd]
(2) Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht, The Trost Touch; Henry Trost & the Bhutanese Architecture, Nova, the University of Texas at El Paso Magazine, volume XVI, number 2 (December, 1980), pages 3-5 and 16 (similar to the above)
(3) Francis L. Fugate, Frontier College, Texas Western at El Paso; the First Fifty Years (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1964), page 29 (photograph of four initial buildings, a reproduction of Aultman A5512 in the El Paso Public Library)
(4) Dale L. Walker, The Lamaseries on the Hill; the Bhutanese Architecture of UT El Paso, Nova, the University of Texas at El Paso Magazine, volume VI, number 4 (August October, 1971), pages 5-12 (the first detailed attempt at a narrative history of the campus, with good illustrations of the campus and of comparable Bhutanese buildings, well annotated with useful footnotes)
(5) El Paso Herald, May 17, 1917, page 10 Notice to Contractors for Bids will be received in Austin, TX
(6) El Paso Herald May 5, 1917, To Ask Bids for Mine School

Remarks: Commission 2414

Kathleen L. Worrell is described in bibliography item 1 (above), on page 64, as an artist. It should be added, on the basis of an undated clipping (about 1925) from an El Paso newspaper, owned by the authors, that she was also a writer whose work appeared in popular magazines (including Collier’s), and that her home is the scene of numerous gatherings of literary and artistic folk of the city

Prepared for the El Paso Public Library by Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1990