Alameda Avenue May Soon Be Historic Highway

It’s the 1940s, Franklin D. Roosevelt is president, gas cost 18 cents a gallon and Alameda Avenue is a bustling part of El Paso – some would even say the heart of the Sun City – with a trolley taking people from Downtown to the Lower Valley thoroughfare.

“It was a beautifully lined thoroughfare and boulevard, had a lot of farming communities in that area,” said State Rep. Naomi Gonzalez, who has studied the so-called glory days of Alameda.

Gonzalez introduced a state bill, passed by the House of Representatives, that would designate Alameda Avenue, or Texas Highway 20 as a historic highway.

Gonzalez introduced the bill in an effort to lure in state and federal grant money to revitalize the area surrounding the Alameda corridor in El Paso.

“It’s really for the residents living along the Alameda corridor to restore their sense of pride in what was a beautiful thoroughfare in El Paso,” said Gonzalez, who is in Austin for the legislative session.

Until the 1940s, there was a trolley on the avenue connecting Ysleta to downtown El Paso. A lot has changed since then. Now, car lots and businesses surround the corridor.

“It’s not that I’m against the car dealerships and the car lots, but we have to find a way to make Alameda back to where the people can go and shop and enjoy the area of their community,” Gonzalez said.

The bill will now go to the senate. The city of El paso plans to put a bus rapid transit system on Alameda in the next couple of years.