Future of iconic mural on De Soto hotel is uncertain

EL PASO, Texas–  The De Soto hotel fire may have left the building charred from the inside with structural damage, but one thing that remained untouched is the mural painted on the exterior of the building. 

The 19-year-old painting depicts members of the El Paso Boxing Hall of Fame, which is something one El Pasoan said is a piece of his family's history. 

For Caesar Cubillos, grandson of El Paso boxing hall of famer Ramon “Ray” Perez, watching Friday's fire at the De Soto Hotel meant almost losing the remaining piece of his grandfather that he had left.

“You can see the burning and that's when we saw that the roof collapsed and that's what we thought, 'Is this it?' And he's been gone for a while now, but we still had this to remember him by,” Cubillos said.

Growing up in Segundo Barrio, Cubillos said Ray Perez was inducted into the El Paso Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003. From 1945 to 1955, Perez's career would lead him to fight 70 professional matches and receive a world champion title.

Cubillos said his grandfather was a cancer survivor and always a strong, determined and hardworking man, who never gave up.

But after passing away in 2015, at age 86, Cubillos said it is the mural that kept him close. 

"I can’t believe I'm getting so emotional about a wall, but to me, it is a piece of my grandfather," he said. "He’s no longer with us, so it's just another way to remember. It's so much better to come here than to a gravesite." 

After the fire cleared, he was relieved. He returned the next day to see the painting he thought he’d lost. 

“It's just amazing, it was like its still there it’s just amazing, I don't know how long it’ll be there, it won't be there forever but I was just happy to be able to come back and see it again,” Cubillos said.