Mabel Welch

Mabel C. (Vanderburg) Welch, El Paso’s first certified female architect, is credited with reintroducing Spanish-style architecture to the city. Early El Paso residents built with adobe bricks, a method common to the region. After the arrival of the railroad in 1881, El Paso grew into a thriving city, and this regional architecture disappeared, replaced by styles and building techniques that reflected the traditions and experiences of those who settled here.

Within four years of their 1916 arrival in El Paso, Mabel and Malcolm Welch began designing and constructing homes. When Malcolm was hospitalized with tuberculosis, Mabel completed the construction of a home that her husband had begun. She subsequently assumed the entire design and construction process for his other projects, and continued to work on her own after his death. Through 1926 and into early 1927, Mabel designed and built nine houses in the 3100 block of Wheeling Ave.

Trips across the southwest during this period introduced Mabel to the Spanish archtectural style, which she believed was more in keeping with the Spanish-Indian heritage of El Paso than the red brick bungalows that lined the city’s streets. Upon her return she designed exclusively in the Spanish Colonial Revival style. Welch continued her work in El Paso and throughout the region into the early 1950s. Examples are located in the Manhattan Heights historic district, the Castle Heights addition and along Rim Road. The state of Texas certified Welch as an architect in 1939. She designed as many as 1,500 homes in El Paso and across the southwest during her career.