Martin Building
El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This seven-story commercial building was constructed in 1917 by businessmen M. D. Roberts and William Martin Banner, for whom it was named. Designed by the architectural firm of Brauhton and Leibert, it features Chicago style detailing in the use of decorative terra cotta and large windows. Early occupants included the El Paso Electric Railway Company, several doctors, and the El Paso Electric Company, later owner of the building. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Rising seven stories over downtown El Paso in 1917, the Martin Building announced the border city's confidence in the boom years of the early 20th century. Its Chicago-style design—broad windows and ornamental terra cotta—reflected the commercial architecture then sweeping American downtowns. Early tenants included the El Paso Electric Railway and Electric companies, tying the tower to the streetcar age that shaped the growing city.
Why it matters
The building captures how mid-sized American cities embraced the skyscraper form and electric transit, using architecture to signal that they, too, belonged to the modern urban age.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
El Paso in 1917 was a booming border city with a lot on its mind. The railroads had arrived in 1881 and turned a remote river crossing into a major junction linking the Southwest, Mexico, and the rest of the country. Money, people, and ambition followed the tracks.
The years around the building's construction were dramatic ones on the border. The Mexican Revolution had been raging across the river since 1910, bringing refugees, trade, intrigue, and anxiety into El Paso. In 1916 and 1917, U.S. troops went into Mexico on the Punitive Expedition after Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico. And in April 1917, the United States entered World War I.
Against that backdrop, El Paso's business leaders kept building. Like cities all over America, they wanted tall commercial buildings downtown to show that their city was modern, prosperous, and here to stay.
People & events
Two businessmen, M. D. Roberts and William Martin Banner, built this seven-story commercial building in 1917. According to the marker, the building's name honors them. Behind it was a very Progressive Era kind of confidence: a belief that investing in a solid, handsome downtown building was a bet on the city's future.
They hired the architectural firm the marker names as Brauhton and Leibert, who designed the building in the Chicago style. That approach, developed in the city that gave the world some of its first skyscrapers, relied on a strong structural frame, which allowed for large windows that let daylight into the offices. The architects also added decorative terra cotta, a fired clay that could be molded into ornament and was durable enough to handle the desert sun.
The first tenants tell you a lot about the city. They included several doctors and the El Paso Electric Railway Company, which ran the streetcars. The El Paso Electric Company also moved in and eventually owned the building. For years, the business of moving people around the city and powering it was run from these floors.
Its place in the American story
The Martin Building is part of a national story about the rise of the American downtown. In the early 20th century, the tall office building spread from Chicago and New York to cities across the country. Mid-sized cities like El Paso adopted the form to show they were modern, too.
Its link to electric streetcars and electric power ties it to another big change. Electricity was reshaping American life in these decades, lighting homes and streets and powering the streetcars that let cities grow outward. The companies that did that work shaped where people lived, worked, and shopped.
All of this happened in a border city at a turbulent moment, and that is what makes the building especially interesting. While revolution and war dominated the headlines, El Paso's builders were quietly betting on the city's long future, and the building is still standing to show it.
If you visit
Stand across the street and look up. The features to notice are the ones the architects cared about most: the big windows set within the structural frame and the terra-cotta ornament. Chicago-style buildings often read as a clear base, a regular middle, and a finished top, so see if you can pick out that pattern here.
Downtown El Paso is a rewarding place for a walking tour of early 20th-century architecture, and this building fits right into it. Walking a few blocks lets you picture the busy city of 1917, with streetcars running, doctors seeing patients upstairs, and people crowding the sidewalks.
For families, the building is an easy way to talk about how cities worked before cars took over. Ask kids to imagine getting across town by streetcar, and remind them that the company running those cars once had offices right here.
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
- · M. D. Roberts
- · William Martin Banner
Themes & tags
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