El Paso is situated on the Rio Grande River, in the extreme west corner of Texas, within a mile of that river, which forms the boundary line between Texas and Mexico, and very near to New Mexico on the north and on the west.

The altitude is 3,700 feet and the climate is mild, pleasant and healthful. El Paso was then a small adobe hamlet of about three hundred inhabitants, more than three-fourths of whom were Mexicans. Nearly all that portion of the village or “ranch” south of San Antonio and San Francisco streets was then cultivated in vineyards, fruit trees, fields of wheat and corn and gardens, for at that time and for years later there was an abundance of water in the Rio Grande all the year round, and El Paso was checkered with acequis (irrigation ditches).

At the head of El Paso street, near the little plaza, where the main acequia ran, there were several large ash and cottonwood trees, in the shade of which was a little market where fruit, and vegetables, and fowls, and mutton, and venison, and other articles were sold. We had no regular meat market.

To one of these trees some enterprising citizen had nailed a plank, which for years served as a bulletin board where people were wont to tack signed manuscripts giving their opinions of each other. Here Mrs. Gillock, who kept the hotel where the Mills building now stands, notified the “Publick” when her boarders refused to pay their bills, and here, in 1859, I saw my brother Anson nail the information that three certain citizens were liars, etc., and here, just ten years later, I gave the same information regarding B. F. Williams. Foolish? Perhaps.

The flouring mill of Simeon Hart, about a mile above the village, was the chief individual industrial enterprise in the valley, and ground the entire wheat crop from both sides of the river, and supplied flour to all the people and the military posts.

The proprietor, a man of wealth and influence, staked all and lost all in the Confederate cause.

The dam which supplied water to this mill had been constructed two hundred years ago by the people of the Mexican side of the river, who kept it in repair for all these years without asking any assistance from the people of the Texas side, although they generously divided the water with us.

The patience and industry displayed by this people in repairing and rebuilding this dam, when washed away by annual floods, can only be compared to that of beavers.

The Texas bank of the Rio Grande was then (1858) only a short distance south of where the Santa Fe depot now stands, but just how far south it is impossible for me or any one else, I believe, to tell, though I have been often asked to testify as to where the river bed was then, and in later years. It found its present bed more or less gradually by erosion and revulsion during these years, and left very few landmarks.

The bed of the river was narrower then than now, and many cottonwood trees grew upon each bank.

At the end of El Paso street was the ferry, where pedestrians crossed in small canoes, and vehicles and wagon trains in larger boats.

Sometimes, when the spring floods came, it was impossible for any one to cross for several days.

Be it remembered there was not a railroad or telegraph station within a thousand miles of us. The business houses, with one exception, were on El Paso street, and around the little plaza. My brother Anson and I each built homes at El Paso before the war, he on San Francisco and I on San Antonio street. The postoffice was on the west side of El Paso street, facing the head of San Antonio street, and in this same large room there was also a whiskey saloon, a billiard table, and several gambling tables. “Uncle Ben” Dowell was postmaster. This room and the street in front of it were the favorite shooting grounds of the sporting men, and others, and here took place many bloody encounters, some of which may be treated of in these idle writings. The graveyard was convenient, being on one of the hills on what is now known as “Sunset Heights.” At one time there were more people buried there who had died by violence than from all other causes. When I state that the writer of these pages sometimes read the burial service there over the remains of our departed countrymen, it may be imagined how sadly we were in need of spiritual guidance. Every citizen, whatever his age or calling, habitually carried a six-shooter at his belt, and slept with it under his pillow. I remember a friend, Johnnie Evans, saying to me once, when I was so thoughtless as to start down street without one: “Buckle it on, Mills; we don’t often need ’em, but when we do need ’em, we need ’em—Oh, God!” Every man’s horse, or team, and arms were the best his purse could buy, and my white saddle horse, that carried me for ten years, was surely a dandy. Sometimes, when I have journeyed to Las Cruces or Mesilla, fifty miles, in my buggy, I have turned this animal loose, saddled and bridled, and he has followed me the whole distance, as a dog follows his master. I have sometimes been vexed with the best of my human friends, but “Blanco” never disappointed me in anything.

The Mexican population, now nearly all passed away by death or removal, were of a much better class than those who came in later with the advent of the railroads, to sell their labor—and their votes. It is but just to say, however, that votes cannot be sold unless there be purchasers, and that the purchasers have ever been of my own race.

The villages below El Paso were more prosperous then than now, because their population is agricultural and the lack of water in the river in recent times has caused great discouragement and even distress. The same was true of Juarez, Mexico, just opposite El Paso, then called Paso del Norte.

The county seat was first at San Elezario, twenty-two miles below El Paso, with fifteen hundred population, and later at Ysleta, with twelve hundred population (nearly all Mexicans), and still later at El Paso. Court proceedings and arguments to juries and political speeches were then made in the Spanish language.

Fort Bliss, garrisoned by regular United States troops, situated at the place now called East El Paso, was considered by army officers and their families as one of the most desirable posts in the whole country, and several officers who subsequently held very high rank during the Civil War had been stationed there. There was another fort, called Quitman, seventy miles below El Paso, on the river, and a chain of military posts from there to San Antonio. The nearest posts in New Mexico were Fort Fillmore, forty miles to the north, near Las Cruces, and Fort Craig, one hundred miles still further north toward Santa Fe.

As to hunting, there were at that time comparatively plenty of wild deer, turkeys, wild geese, ducks and mountain quail on the mountains and in the valley, and I got my share of them.