Burges House
El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Prominent El Paso attorney Richard Fenner Burges (1873-1945) had this house built in 1912 by local contractor J. E. Morgan. It was altered in 1927 according to plans of architect Otto H. Thorman, resulting in its current appearance featuring classical design elements, including a portico with fluted columns. Burges, whose wife, Ethel Petrie Shelton, died during the home's construction, was an active civic leader, serving as city attorney and member of the State legislature. The house was inherited by his daughter and remained in the family until 1986. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1993
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1912 for prominent attorney Richard Fenner Burges, this El Paso house took its present classical look — a portico of fluted columns — in a 1927 remodeling by architect Otto Thorman. Burges lost his wife, Ethel, during the home's original construction, then went on to serve as city attorney and state legislator while raising his family here. The house stayed in the Burges family until 1986.
Why it matters
It preserves the home of a civic leader whose work helped shape early-twentieth-century El Paso and Texas government.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When this house went up in 1912, El Paso was a city in a hurry. The railroads that arrived in the early 1880s had turned a dusty crossing on the Rio Grande into one of the busiest junctions in the Southwest. Banks, smelters, rail yards and law offices filled a downtown that was growing fast toward the mountains.
The city also stood at the edge of something larger. Just across the river lay Ciudad Juárez, and from 1910 the Mexican Revolution was unfolding within sight of El Paso's rooftops. Refugees, soldiers, journalists and adventurers passed through the city. El Paso residents watched a neighboring nation remake itself while they built their own homes, churches and institutions.
In Texas as a whole, these were the Progressive Era years. Cities were professionalizing their governments, writing new rules for water, utilities and public health, and looking to lawyers and civic leaders to shape them. A house like this one belonged to the people doing that shaping.
People & events
Richard Fenner Burges was one of El Paso's prominent attorneys, and in 1912 he hired local contractor J. E. Morgan to build a family home. It should have been a hopeful time. Instead, his wife, Ethel Petrie Shelton, died while the house was still under construction. Burges moved into the home he had planned with her as a widower with a young family.
He did not withdraw from public life. Burges served El Paso as city attorney, giving legal advice to a fast-growing border city, and later sat in the Texas Legislature. His career followed a common Progressive Era path, from private practice to city hall to the statehouse, carried by a sense that capable citizens owed something to their community.
In 1927 the house changed. Architect Otto H. Thorman drew up plans that gave it the classical character it shows today, including a portico with fluted columns. The home passed to Burges's daughter after his death in 1945 and stayed in the family until 1986. That is more than seventy years under one family's roof.
Its place in the American story
Across America in the early twentieth century, cities grew up around civic leaders like Burges. Lawyers, merchants and professionals served as city attorneys, council members and legislators, and they wrote the ordinances and laws that turned frontier settlements into modern municipalities. Their homes often became the most lasting record of that generation.
The house's 1927 makeover tells a national story too. In the 1910s and 1920s many Americans favored classical columns, porticos and symmetrical facades. The style suggested permanence, order and civic virtue, and that was an appealing message in a young city that wanted to look established.
This home also stands in a border city that was shaped by railroads, by its Mexican neighbor and by its distance from Austin and Washington. It is a reminder that the Progressive Era did not happen only in Eastern capitals. It was also worked out in places like El Paso, one house and one public office at a time.
If you visit
Look first for the portico and its fluted columns. They are the clearest sign of Otto Thorman's 1927 redesign. Try to imagine the plainer 1912 house underneath, and you can see how one family's home changed as both the family and the city grew.
This is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, so treat it as you would any historic home: enjoy it from the street and respect the privacy of whoever lives or works there now. The marker is the place to stop and read.
The house works well as part of a wider walk or drive through El Paso's older neighborhoods, where homes from the early twentieth century show how the city looked when it was booming. Pair it with a view toward the Rio Grande and Juárez beyond to get a sense of the border city Burges served.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Richard Fenner Burges
- · Ethel Petrie Shelton
- · Otto H. Thorman
Themes & tags
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