Wells Fargo Express Company offices and stables
El Paso, Texas

Description: Wells Fargo Express Company offices and stables
Other Names: Wells Fargo & Company Express (in 1919 the name of Wells Fargo & Company was changed to American Railway Express Company).
Address: offices on Paisano Drive, at Union Depot; stables north of the Depot, across the railroad tracks; El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Type: commercial: freight offices and stables
Original Client: Wells Fargo Express Company
Historic Inventory:
Date: 1905-1906
Condition: stables demolished; offices remodeled and used by Sun City Area Transit, a bus company known as “SCAT”.

Architect or Firm: Henry C. Trost
Associated Architect or Firm: Trost & Trost
Contractors:
Dimensions and Orientation: offices: ground story, 128 x 61 feet; second story, 61 x 32 feet; office entry faced North; stables were on other side of railroad tracks from the offices, and were one story in height, 75 x 120 feet
Budget/Cost: for stables: $10,000

Foundation: for offices: concrete
Wall Materials: for offices: brick, plastered
Roofing Materials: for offices: composition with tile coping
Other Materials Used: for offices: stone window sills, brick cornice brackets, rolling steel freight doors
Remodeling and Additions:

Present Owner:
Location of Drawings: El Paso Public Library: (A-7) 14 ink on linen sheets including North, South, East and West elevations of office
Location of Documentary Photographs: El Paso Public Library: Aultman A 5836 (view of Union Depot from the north, with Wells Fargo offices in background)

Bibliography: (1) El Paso Herald, January 3, 1906, page 7 (discussion of “The impending move of the Wells Fargo company into its new building near the union station.”)
(2) El Paso Herald, February 16, 1906, part 2, page [1] (reports that the Wells Fargo building is ready for occupancy and the company is moving in. Wells Fargo & Co. will build a stable large enough for 25 horses.
(3) El Paso Herald, March 2, 1906, page 3 (report on interior furnishings)
(4) El Paso Herald, August 29, 1906, page 9 (information on stables, including architects, size, and budget)

Remarks: The plans for the offices are austere and “old fashioned” for Trost & Trost. This is because Henry Trost’s building was intended to harmonize with the west wing of Union Depot. Trost’s building is located twenty feet to the west of the Depot’s west wing, and is on the same axis. The Depot’s west wing was not very visible to passengers because it was at the rear. The main entrance to the Depot is on the east, facing the terminus of San Francisco Street, and boarding of trains is through the north entrance. The main Depot building, including its west wing, was designed by a prominent Chicago firm, D. H. Burnham & Company. The utilitarian west wing, for kitchen, dining, freight, mail and storage facilities, is simpler in its detailing than is the main block of the depot. (The remote siting of the Depot’s west wing, and of Trost’s Wells Fargo building, is no longer evident because of the later extension of Paisano Drive to pass just south of the Depot.)

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