Early-1900s El Paso had a public alligator pond in the middle of downtown (1908 - 1912)
Found this amazing old photo/postcard of people crowding around to watch alligators being fed in San Jacinto Plaza.
For broader city context, here’s a readable background piece on El Paso history from Texas Happens: History of El Paso, Texas: From Paso del Norte to a Modern Border City.
A few wild facts/background points:
- The image is cataloged as a 1912 postcard called “Feeding the Alligators, El Paso, Texas.”
- It shows a crowd at the Alligator Pool in San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso.
- El Paso really did keep live alligators in the plaza starting in the 1880s/1889 era, even though this is the Chihuahuan Desert.
- The plaza became so associated with them that people called it “La Plaza de los Lagartos” (“Alligator Plaza”).
- This wasn’t just a weird one-off moment — there were multiple postcards made of the alligator pond, so it was clearly a genuine local attraction.
- The gators became such a part of local culture that UTEP’s “Gator Camp” tradition traces back to students pranking the campus with alligators borrowed from the plaza.
- The live alligators are long gone, but the site is still marked by Luis Jiménez’s Los Lagartos sculpture downtown.
Honestly, this is one of those photos that sounds fake until you realize it’s just normal El Paso history: a desert border city, a downtown plaza, and a bunch of people casually watching gators get fed.
Best part is the crowd size — this really feels like the kind of attraction people would bring out-of-town visitors to see.
If anyone here knows more about the exact date of the image or the feeding routine at the plaza, I’d love the added context.