The population of the city from the U. Census Bureau was ,, [ 5 ] making it the 22nd-most populous city in the U. The region of 2. The city is home to three publicly traded companies, and former Western Refining , now Marathon Petroleum , [ 13 ] as well as home to the Medical Center of the Americas, [ 14 ] the only medical research and care provider complex in West Texas and Southern New Mexico, [ 15 ] and the University of Texas at El Paso , the city's primary university. The city hosts the annual Sun Bowl college football postseason game, the second-oldest bowl game in the country.
Border Patrol Special Operations Group. El Paso is a five-time All-America City Award winner, winning in , , , , and , [ 17 ] and Congressional Quarterly ranked it in the top-three safest large cities in the United States between and , [ 18 ] including holding the title of the safest city between and The El Paso region has had human settlement for thousands of years, as evidenced by Folsom points from hunter-gatherers found at Hueco Tanks.
This suggests 10, to 12, years of human habitation. When the Spanish arrived, the Manso , Suma , and Jumano tribes populated the area. The Mescalero Apache were also present. In , the small village of El Paso became the temporary base for Spanish governance of the territory of New Mexico as a result of the Pueblo Revolt , until , when Santa Fe was reconquered and once again became the capital. However, the region was claimed by Texas as part of the treaty signed with Mexico and numerous attempts were made by Texas to bolster these claims, but the villages that consisted of what is now El Paso and the surrounding area remained essentially a self-governed community with both representatives of the Mexican and Texan governments negotiating for control until Texas irrevocably took control in A military post called the "Post opposite El Paso" meaning opposite El Paso del Norte, across the Rio Grande was established in on Coons' Rancho beside the settlement of Franklin, which became the nucleus of the future El Paso, Texas; after the army left in , the rancho went into default and was repossessed; in , a post office was established on the rancho bearing the name El Paso as an example of cross-border town naming until El Paso del Norte was renamed Juarez in After changing hands twice more, the El Paso company was set up in and bought the property, hiring Anson Mills to survey and lay out the town, thus forming the current street plan of downtown El Paso.
In Beyond the Mississippi , Albert D. Richardson , traveling to California via coach, described El Paso as he found it in late The Texan town of El Paso had four hundred inhabitants, chiefly Mexicans.
Its businessmen were Americans, but Spanish was the prevailing language. All the features were Mexican: low, flat adobe buildings, shading cottonwoods under which dusky, smoking women and swarthy children sold fruit, vegetables, and bread; habitual gambling universal, from the boys' game of pitching quartillas three-cent coins to the great saloons where huge piles of silver dollars were staked at monte.
