Vintage Video Shows El Pasoans Living Life in the 50s

Ready to take a trip in the way-back machine to the 50s? Here is a video that shows what life was like here in the Borderland back about 70 years ago. BTW, take a look at 2:33!

That's a streetcar folks! Here are some of the things you'll get to check out in this video:

• Take a trip to Fort Bliss to check out the horse cavalry.
• "Some of the Rio Grande country is not only wild... but very "woolly."
  • We get to see the herds of sheep and goats that travelled here and were used for the coats.
• "Six-guns and stagescoaches are a part of the scene... but not as of yore."
  • This is all about how people on the train were greeted by an old west reenactment.
• We get to see the art of boot-making.
• We also get to see a saddle being made and learn that a new saddle will run about the same price as a new car.

Even though the video is only about halfway done at this point, that's about it for the El Paso part. It then goes into horse and carriage construction from Pennsylvania, along with traveling overseas to Ireland.

According to the census taken in 1950, the city of El Paso had a population of 130,485. This was a pretty large increase from the 1940 census, which had the population listed at only 96,810. The really big boom for El Paso is coming in the decade of the 50s though, as the 1960 census saw a massive increase in population with it more than doubling to 276,687.