[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10998-10999]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      23 IN 1--SAN ELIZARIO, TEXAS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gallego) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Madam Speaker, today, as we continue our journey through 
the 23rd District of Texas, I would like to talk about the newest city 
in the 23rd District and one of the newest cities in Texas, which is 
the city of San Elizario, with a population of about 12,000 people.
  Located south of El Paso, it is a small community that incorporated 
on November 5, 2013, after its residents voted to make it a city. 
Recently, on May 10, the people of the city of San Elizario elected 
their first mayor, Maya Sanchez, and the voters of San Elizario also 
elected council members Leticia Hurtado-Miranda, David Cantu, Miguel 
Najera, Jr., Rebecca Martinez-Juarez, and George Almanzar.
  While it is a new city, the San Elizario community has been around a 
very long time.
  In 1598, Don Juan de Onate, who was a Spanish conquistador and 
nobleman who was born in Zacatecas, led a group of more than 530 
colonists and about 7,000 head of livestock from southern Chihuahua to 
settle the province of New Mexico.
  The group traveled a northeasterly route for weeks and crossed the 
desert until reaching the banks of the Rio Grande in present day--you 
guessed it--San Elizario.
  On April 30, 1598, the travelers, who were very thirsty, drank the 
cool water of the river and then celebrated with a thanksgiving mass 
and enjoyed a feast. They ate fish, fowl, and deer. That is actually 
considered the very first Thanksgiving ever celebrated in the present-
day United States of America.
  Mr. Onate performed a ceremony known as ``La Toma,'' or ``the take,'' 
declaring the land a new province of Spain, to be ruled by King Phillip 
II.
  San Elizario was established around 1760 as a civilian settlement of 
Hacienda de los Tiburcios. In 1789, the Spaniards established a fort 
there called Presidio de San Elizario. The town grew around the fort 
and took the name of San Elizario.
  The word San Elizario actually comes from the Spanish word ``San 
Eliceario,'' known as the Roman Catholic patron saint of soldiers.
  The chapel there at the mission of San Elizario, or La Capilla, is 
one of three missions in El Paso--Socorro and Ysleta being the other 
two--and is part of El Paso's historic Mission Trail.
  During the 20th century, it served as the center of missionary work 
throughout the Mission Valley. The chapel was moved to its present site 
in 1789 to protect travelers and settlers along the Camino Real, or 
Royal Highway, which ran from Mexico through Ciudad Juarez, which was 
then called Paso del Norte, and on to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
  Upon Mexico's independence, the presidio fell into ruins. Rebuilding 
efforts didn't beginning until 1853, with a small church. The present 
structure was completed in 1882, and little has changed since then.
  I invite everyone to visit the city of San Elizario and the historic 
Mission Valley of El Paso to learn more about

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the cultures and traditions of the 23rd District of Texas.
  I congratulate the new city.

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