I had an uncle (retired army) from North Carolina, who moved to El Paso.

To me, it's an interesting dot on a map, but to him it was home.

I've never visited Texas, nor read any arfcom thread about El Paso.


Good or bad, what's the difference between the 1989 and 2021 versions of that city?

From Texas here,  only driven through El Paso. Interesting question. Would love to hear about this.

Can't speak to El Paso, but 1989 Laredo was heavily intertwined with Nuevo Laredo - and other northern Mexico cities.

There was a tremendous amount of daily traffic between the two cities.

Many Mexicans had day jobs on the US side, and commuted.

US citizens went shopping in Nuevo Laredo during the daytime, and night-clubbing after hours.

Most of the retail businesses on the US side derived a huge chunk of their income from Mexican customers.

Malls were booming (which also attracted a lot of people from Mexico).

There were a lot of manufacturing companies with facilities on both sides of the border (typically administrative on the US side and production on the Mexico side).

Customs brokers were everywhere.

Even back then, some of the most affluent new neighborhoods on the US side were populated by Mexican nationals with drug cartel connections.

Nowadays, travel across the border is more restrictive and unsafe, and very few people go shopping or nightclubbing in Mexico.

Many American companies eventually opened stores and malls in Mexico, to the detriment of retailers on the US side.

I went there in the summer of 1990 as a high school student for a state 4-H competition. We only went out to eat once and stayed at the hotel the rest of the time. I actually won one of the divisions and every teenage girl there wanted to talk to me. Our 4-H extension agent was like, nope, we have to catch a plane and fly back home. Cockblocking adults!!!

So I didn't see much of the town, what got me was the difference in weather. It was August and it was hot, but it wasn't bad. When I stepped off the plane back in Dallas, welcome to 300ft elevation, hot humid soup bullshit.

In 1989, Juarez was a pretty safe place to visit with a thriving market where you could buy almost anything under the sun for cheap. The City of El Paso had a free bus that would shuttle visitors from the US side to the Juarez Market every hour.

It was really nice back then in El Paso.

It was a lot whiter for one thing. Back then it was 69% Hispanic and today it is around 85%. The 1986 amnesty accelerated that change. Today if you see white folks around town they are usually military or federal LEO associated. We actually used to have free range white girls around here, now they are mostly dependas.

We had a lot more crime back then too, but that was the whole country really. I had friends who work in convenience stores back than and they usually averaged at least one "beer run" every night, with the occasional robbery. There were lots of home burglaries which were largely committed by illegals from south of the border, the border wall fixed that. Nowadays even "beer runs" frequently make the local TV news because they are so uncommon. Our "crime of the week" this week is some kids breaking into unlocked cars. I know it doesn't meet people's expectations of there being blood on the streets here, but the facts are Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio are much more dangerous places.

Back then we also had a large garment manufacturing industry: Farah, Levi's, Lee. Those are all gone now, largely replaced by call centers. El Paso Natural Gas (later El Paso Corp, now part of Kinder Morgan) also had a large presence in the community as their corporate headquarters were here until the late 1990's and they occupied two high rise buildings downtown.

UTEP basketball was HUGE. They were one of the 10 most successful programs during the 1980's and the games largely sold out and were the place to see and be seen. They broadcast the games on the local network affiliates, even the home ones.

You could get a live in illegal Mexican maid for as little as $30 a week + room and board.

Going over to Mexico for drinks/dinner/dancing/shopping was an everyday thing.

El Paso has it's own appeal, some people get it some don't. Personally I like the weather here more than most places I've been (save maybe Southern California, but I'm not willing to put up with all that goes along with that place for lots of temperate days). The nights are cool and the days are hot and dry and that suits me. There is lots to do outdoors here: tons of hiking, offroading, skiing isn't far away, as are the mountains. It is a bit of a drive to some good fishing though. I'd also be willing to wager that the average El Pasoan gets to shoot more than folks from DFW do. We have lots of open desert, BLM land nearby in New Mexico, and a great military range that is open to the public in addition to several indoor ranges.

Thanks for the responses.  It seems like I would've loved El Paso and Juarez thirty-some years ago.  

While not El Paso, the movie Fandango (1984) covers a lot of SW Texas, most of the locations are still there. So it is amazing to see the growth around those locations.

I was on location where they filmed the part where they buried the champagne bottle. I saw Kevin Costner walk by and he wasn't a big star yet.  I helped with traffic control while they filmed that scene.  I got to eat lunch with the crew and they put on a good spread but I had to leave early and couldnt stick around for dinner which was going to be steak and lobster.  The airplane from the sky diving part flew by but it wasn't part of the scene.  One of the crew said that the pilot was one crazy flyer.

Did more shooting in the 3 years I lived in El Paso than I have done my entire life. Drive 20min into whatever part of the desert you want and do some good training, ammo was still cheap

Lived 5 minutes away from the rod and gun club and would shoot IDPA any weekend that I wasn’t working like a slave on base or pooping on a cactus while on a field mission.

Really miss the place and all my close friends who still live there

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Can you believe it snowed & froze during the same day this picture was taken!?
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Funny you mention this. I remember driving through Pyote when I was a kid, and all there really was left there, other than the state children's home, was the hanger at the airfield where they later filmed the skydiving scenes. There's nothing left of that but the side walls now.

Last time I drove through there, there was legit 5 pm rush hour traffic jam of trucks and rigs backed up for half a mile trying to get across the overpass and onto the interstate. Blew my mind.

Cool, I like Fandango.  Going to see DOM is on my bucket list.