Antiquities Board sends back Duranguito application for historical landmark designation

The Texas Antiquities Advisory Board Thursday asked for more evidence and documentation before making a recommendation on whether the Texas Historical Commission should designate several properties in the Duranguito neighborhood as historical landmarks.

The decision was made during the board’s quarterly meeting Thursday in Amarillo Thursday.

Historian Max Grossman wants to preserve the Duranguito neighborhood, the site where the City of El Paso plans to build an entertainment and performing arts center. Grossman and Texas Businessman J.P. Bryan will have the opportunity to resubmit their petitions with any new evidence and documentation.

During Thursday’s hearing, streamed live on KVIA.com, UTEP archeologist David Carmichael argued some of the artifacts buried in the Duranguito area are “time capsules for archeologists.” Carmichael said there is evidence of early mining and smelting activity in the area, as well as trash pits, latrines and a well. “Those may not sound like a big deal … but these are the remains of a small town.”

Bryan, the preservationist funding the legal battle against the City of El Paso, told the board Duranguito is the foundation of El Paso and “sacred ground in the State of Texas.” Bryan further stated Duranguito “does not belong to El Paso exclusively, but to all of the citizens of the State of Texas.”

“There was an absolute tapestry of cultures that collided here from 1827 until late in this past century,” Bryan said, “It was Anglo, Hispanic, Chinese, and Native American.”

“This is one the last opportunities you will have to properly investigate (Duranguito) and there is every reason to approve and recommend the nomination (of the Duranguito properties) to the Texas Historical Commission,” said attorney Frank Ainsa, who represents Grossman.

Ainsa told the board there are already plenty of studies, including one commissioned by the City in 1998, that turned up evidence of ranches and structures buried underneath the Duranguito structures.

Ainsa said the City’s study was placed in a file cabinet and only surfaced until Grossman got involved. “The reason this area has never received any attention is because the City has always had designs to build a sports arena there,” Ainsa said.

During the hearing, City of El Paso Architect Laura Foster and City of El Paso Engineer Sam Rodriguez told the board the City has hired Moore Archeological Consultants to look for evidence of historical artifacts in the Duranguito neighborhood.

“What I’m hoping is that you will deny (Grossman and Bryan’s application) today and wait for us to do our work that is laid out in the code with proper disciplines, rather than a narrative of stories that may or may not have happened there,” Foster told the board, “We do not know anything about the site. We want to produce a record of the site that is relied on work that is discipline-appropriate and that uses discipline-appropriate methods.”

Foster told the board the City knows the site has a “high-probability for being an archeological-sensitive site and we respect and we are eager to learn the truth about the site.”

Douglas Mangum, the principal investigator for Moore Archeological Consultants, the firm hired by the City of El Paso to investigate the Duranguito site, said the City “has provided us more resources to do the background research than any other city I’ve worked with before.”

Mangum said “we have conducted extensive research and much of it support the idea there is a lot of potential for historic and pre-historic archeological resources underneath the existing structures within our project area … we intend to go in there and do proper archeology, conduct proper excavations and we’re going to look at the entire area.”

“If we come across something that we think is worthy, we will be bringing our own nominations and I expect that there is a high probability that will happen,” Mangum said.

Douglas Boyd, a member of the board, reminded both sides the committee makes landmark designations based on facts and documentation, and not the potential of an area to produce historical artifacts. A second board member, John D. Lowe, echoed the sentiment, saying he is concerned about the Commission setting a “bad precedent” if it designates historical landmarks in Duranguito purely based on a property’s potential to produce historical artifacts.

Grossman has filed three still pending lawsuits in efforts to stop the City from building the voter-approved Multipurpose Performing Arts Center. The City wants to build the arena in the area south of the convention center known as “Duranguito.” Grossman argues architectural treasures above ground and archeological relics below the ground will be lost if the City builds the arena.

The City argues it has a fiduciary obligation to deliver the project to voters and the location is the best suited given its proximity to the convention center, hotels and other amenities. The City has already purchased a majority of the properties, relocating residents.

In May, Grossman asked the State of Texas to grant State Antiquities Landmark designation to 12 properties in Duranguito. Eleven of them are owned by the City; the other is owned by a resident who rejected the City’s offers to relocate.

Grossman claims an acequia, or ditch, excavated in 1827 by rancher Juan Maria Ponce de Leon is buried approximately 20-30 feet underneath the site, and ground penetrating radar turned up evidence of the structure.

“SAL (State Antiquities Landmark) designation does not mean that sites or buildings cannot be altered or destroyed,” states the Texas Historical Commission on its website. “The land-owning agency must consult with the THC about such proposed actions through the permit process, and the THC will determine whether the work will be allowed.”

In a statement sent in May, Rodriguez told ABC-7 the THC review process the City must follow is very similar with or without any SAL designations. “The designation of a Landmark simply recognizes that a site has particular historic or scientific merit. All parts of the project area will undergo the necessary series of investigative steps that are required to locate, identify and understand any ‘landmark-eligible’ sites that may be present,” he wrote.