National Register Listing

Plaza Hotel

Oregon and Mills Sts., El Paso, TX

Built for Conrad Hilton as the El Paso Hilton Hotel, the present Plaza Hotel is significant as one of El Paso's early high-rise structures from the office of Trost and Trost. The style is Art Deco, and the exterior remains largely unaltered from its original form. Hilton, born in San Antonio, New Mexico in 1887, rose to international recognition as the founder of one of the world's most successful hotel chains. Emerging from the service as a WW I Army officer, young Hilton purchased the town hotel in Cisco, a west Texas oil boom town. From that modest start, he built a chain of hotels around the world that fifty years later boasted 188 Hiltons in 38 U. S cities and 54 cities abroad.

The El Paso Hilton was the eighth hotel opened by Hilton. City directories indicate that Hilton resided in the hotel during the 1930s. Though he did not reside permanently in the city, he had many lifelong friends there and was a generous contributor to various civic and charitable projects over the years. His mother lived in the hotel until 1947 and he visited the city frequently until 1963 when the hotel was sold and the name changed.

Local significance of the building:
Architecture

Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.