The Biggest Hotel In El Paso Is Also Its Oldest

Got more guests than rooms? Set your family and friends up at the biggest hotels in El Paso.

It's right smack in the middle of downtown El Paso, has won many awards, offers fine dining, is a whiskey and tequila drinkers paradise and has seen a zillion big names, famous and infamous, come through its doors.

After an extensive renovation and a name change in 2016, the Hotel Paso Del Norte is El Paso's oldest hotel and, with 351 rooms, its also the largest.

El Paos has had many hotels over the years with many built in the 1800's. They're not all still operating but El Paso's largest hotel still is and has been since 1912. The Hotel Paso Del Norte downtown has seen an untold number of gusts including past presidents, celebrities, politicians and more.

Friends Turned Enemies

Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa hung out there and once met with United States General John Pershing when the USA wanted him as an ally. That meeting is commemorated by a statue of the two men in front of the hotel.

That potential relationship went south a few years later when Villa raided Columbus, NM and Pershing was dispatched to hunt him down and bring him back to the USA.

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El Paso's 3 Biggest Hotels

• Hotel Paso Del Norte -  351 Rooms
• Marriott El Paso - 296 Rooms
• Wyndham El Paso (Airport) - 272 Rooms

El Paso's Oldest Hotels

As far as continuously operating hotels in El Paso go, the 3 grand old dames are:

• The Hotel Paso Del Norte, in downtown El Paso, opened in 1912 with that name, then became the Camino Real for a few decades. After the major restoration it got in 2016, its original name was also restored.
• The Gardner hotel opened in 1922, located downtown as well, it has also seen many famous guests including author Cormac McCarthy, (No Country For Old Men) and former public enemy #1, John Dillinger.

The Plaza Hotel, also located downtown, has roots that go back to the 1800's. In 1929, after the original hotel burned down, Conrad Hilton rebuilt it making it one of the very first Hilton hotels.

In 2019, El Paso businessman Paul Foster refurbished it and reopened it as The Plaza Hotel Pioneer Park.