El Paso Museum of History facts for kids
Entrance to the El Paso Museum of History facing Cleveland Park.
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| Established | 1974 |
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| Location | 510 N. Santa Fe Street El Paso, Texas |
| Type | History Museum |
The El Paso Museum of History is a cool place in downtown El Paso, Texas. It teaches visitors about the last 400 years of history in the area where the United States and Mexico meet. The museum has a huge space, over 16,000 square feet, for its exhibits. You can see both special traveling shows and exhibits that are always there. The museum also hosts fun programs and has a special digital wall you can touch. The City of El Paso runs this museum.
Museum History
The museum first opened in 1974 as the Cavalry Museum. Back then, it mostly showed information about the history of horse-riding soldiers in the American West. In 1980, its name changed to the El Paso Museum of History. For a while, the director of the El Paso Museum of Art also looked after this museum. But in December 1990, the El Paso Museum of History got its own director.
The original museum building was quite small and not in the best spot. So, in 2000, people voted to use money to build a brand new museum. The new building, located downtown, opened its doors on June 16, 2007. In its first year at the new spot, more than 30,000 people came to visit! The museum is known for helping to make downtown El Paso a lively place again.
Wall of Giants Project
The El Paso Museum of History takes part in an exciting yearly project called the Wall of Giants. This project honors a person, group, place, or event that has made a big, lasting impact on the city. A community group called the Circle of Giants chooses who gets honored each year.
Here are some of the amazing honorees:
- 1st Wall of Giants: Don Haskins and the "Glory Road" basketball team.
- 2nd Wall of Giants: Farah Manufacturing Inc., a famous clothing company.
- 3rd Wall of Giants: El Paso's Mayors, who led the city.
- 4th Wall of Giants: The Missions and Their People, celebrating local history.
- 5th Wall of Giants: The University of Texas at El Paso, a major university.
- 6th Wall of Giants: Fort Bliss, a large military base.
The Digital Wall (Digie)
The museum's huge touchscreen digital wall, known as "Digie," opened on February 14, 2015. It was the second digital wall of its kind in the world and the very first in the United States! This amazing wall is made of five giant touchscreens. It shows an interactive, 3D view of El Paso's history, going all the way back to the late 1600s. Each touchscreen is a large 95-inch LED display. The content on Digie is connected to other digital walls in different cities. The wall itself is forty feet long and six feet high. There's also a smaller, portable version of the wall. This mobile wall can visit schools, shopping malls, and community centers. Digie lets visitors explore history by searching for information or just looking through the many pictures shown.
"Digie" is short for "Digital Information Gateway in El Paso." People from the community even helped come up with ideas for the wall's name. Residents, visitors, or even former residents of El Paso are invited to share their own pictures and videos about El Paso with the museum. These can then be shown on Digie! All pictures are first checked by Everett Thomas, who is the curator for Digie. The wall is not just for viewing pictures and videos; it also saves and stores these materials for the future.
The digital wall cost about three million dollars to build. The money came from a special bond issue in 2012. The idea for the wall started in 2011. That's when Julia Bussinger, the director of the El Paso Museum of History, met the director of the Copenhagen museum at a conference. They talked about having the next digital wall in El Paso. Copenhagen was where the very first digital wall of this kind in the world was located.
See also
