El Paso street cars then and now

El Paso is only a month or so away from seeing a street car from running on the streets.

But El Paso saw its first street car back in 1882, and for many years after that — the street car was an integral part of our city.

“What we’re looking at here is the original wagon or the original trolley system of El Paso which was basically designed to go across the border,” said Nestor Valencia.

Valencia is native El Pasoan. He’s not only an artist behind portraits you may have seen around the city, Valencia was a planner for the Cordova Bridge — Chamizal Park — helping restore the Plaza Theatre and most recently helped plan the new San Jacinto Plaza.

He’s also a street car history buff.

“In 1920 through 1925 we had 52 miles of trolley system in El Paso. We were a street car system,” Valencia said.

Valencia told ABC-7 in 1922, the street car was moving 2.1 million passengers a year.

Years later Valencia ended up working for the city and was involved in purchasing the street cars many are familiar with seeing in pictures today.

“In 1950 the city bought 19 of the most beautiful PCC 39s,” Valencia said.

But soon after, buses started becoming more popular.

Street car service from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez stopped and a new administration ended all efforts to restore street car service.

“I thought it would take a huge miracle to bring them back,” Valencia said.

“I think the dream of bringing back the street cars to El Paso never really died,” said District 1 Rep Peter Swarzbein.

Swarzbein told ABC-7 a young City Council in 2010 along with preservationists made the push to bring back the street cars.

Swarzbein, a New York art student at the time came to El Paso and used his art skills to bring the idea of the street car to the streets.

“In less than two months myself and a rag tag group of volunteers had collected 2,000 signatures for a street car line to connect UTEP to downtown,” Swarzbein said.

Ted Houghton, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission at the time, told the city if it came up with a $4.7 million dollar shovel plan he’d find $97 million.

The city did and got the street car project got funded.