Old Main
El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Completed in 1917, this building was the first structure on the new campus of the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy, now the University of Texas at El Paso. The Bhutanese style was suggested by Kathleen L. Worrell, wife of the school's first dean, who was inspired by a feature on Bhutan in the April 1914 issue of "National Geographic" magazine. Distinctive features include sloped walls, decorative brickwork and a wide overhanging roof. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Completed in 1917, Old Main was the first building on the new campus of the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy, today the University of Texas at El Paso. Its striking Bhutanese architecture—sloped walls, decorative brickwork, and wide overhanging roofs—was inspired by a 1914 National Geographic feature on Bhutan, suggested by Kathleen Worrell, wife of the school's first dean. The style became the signature look of the entire university.
Why it matters
Old Main launched a mining-and-engineering college on the desert border and gave rise to one of the most unusual architectural identities of any American campus.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1900s, El Paso was a booming border city at the crossroads of railroads, ranching, and mining. The mountains and deserts of West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico held rich deposits of metal ore, and El Paso had become an important hub for processing and shipping it. What the region needed was trained people: engineers, geologists, and metallurgists who understood how to find, extract, and refine those resources.
The Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy was created to meet that need. The words 'new campus' on the marker are a clue that the school had already begun elsewhere in the city before moving to this site. Completed in 1917, this building was the first structure on the new grounds, the anchor of everything that would come after.
The timing matters too. The United States was entering the First World War in 1917, and metals like copper were in enormous demand. A school devoted to mining and metallurgy was not an academic luxury; it was tied to the practical, industrial heart of the era.
People & events
The most delightful part of this story involves a magazine and a woman with an eye for design. Kathleen L. Worrell, wife of the school's first dean, came across a feature on Bhutan in the April 1914 issue of National Geographic. The photographs showed the Himalayan kingdom's great fortress-monasteries, with their massive sloping walls and broad overhanging roofs.
She saw something in those images that fit this rugged landscape. The mountains around El Paso, the dry climate, the stark and dramatic setting: why not build a school that echoed the architecture of another mountain land half a world away? Her suggestion was taken up, and Old Main rose with sloped walls, decorative brickwork, and a wide overhanging roof inspired by Bhutan.
It was an unlikely choice for a Texas engineering school, and that's exactly what makes it memorable. The style caught on well beyond this first building, becoming the signature look of the campus as it grew. In 1982, Old Main was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Its place in the American story
Old Main is where a specialized mining school on the U.S.–Mexico border began its growth into a major public university, known today as the University of Texas at El Paso. That arc, from a practical technical school serving local industry to a broad university, is a path followed by many American institutions in the twentieth century as higher education expanded far beyond its old elite centers.
The building also reflects the West's deep ties to mining. Across the region, minerals drew workers, built towns, and fed the nation's factories. Schools like this one supplied the expertise that industry depended on, and they gave young people in the West a way to build careers close to home.
Finally, there's the architecture itself. Most American campuses of the era borrowed from European traditions, especially Gothic and classical styles. Choosing to draw on Bhutan, inspired by a popular magazine, is a charming reminder of how publications like National Geographic opened American eyes to the wider world. The result is one of the most distinctive campus identities in the country.
If you visit
Look first at the walls. Rather than rising straight up, they slope inward as they climb, which gives the building a sturdy, fortress-like presence. Then notice the band of decorative brickwork and the broad roof that reaches out beyond the walls. These are the features the marker singles out, and they come straight from that 1914 magazine inspiration.
Once you've studied Old Main, look around at the campus. You'll see how its example spread, and you can appreciate that one building's unusual style shaped the look of an entire university. The mountain backdrop helps explain why the idea worked; the setting feels fitting for architecture born in a mountain kingdom.
This is an active university campus, so be respectful of classes and students as you explore. Old Main makes a rewarding stop on any trip through far West Texas, especially paired with time in El Paso's historic neighborhoods and the desert and mountain scenery that surrounds the city.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Kathleen L. Worrell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The University of Texas at El Paso
El Paso, TX
The University of Texas at El Paso began in 1913 as a State School of Mines and Metallurgy, founded to train engineers for the region's mining economy on land the citizens of El Paso donated near Fort Bliss. After a 1916 fire, it moved to its present site and rebuilt in a striking architectural style borrowed from Himalayan Bhutan. Over decades it grew from a mining college into Texas Western College and, by 1967, a full university offering doctoral degrees.
1966 Texas Western Basketball National Champions
El Paso, TX
Texas Western College in El Paso — now UTEP — was the first college in a southern state to integrate, and under coach Don Haskins it recruited Black players when many southern schools still refused to. In the 1965-66 season the Miners went 23-1, battled through overtime thrillers in the NCAA tournament, and in the title game started five African American players against an all-white Kentucky team, winning 72-65. Haskins simply said he was playing his best players.
Olga Kohlberg
El Paso, TX
Born into a German-Jewish family in 1864, Olga Bernstein came to El Paso in 1884 after marrying businessman Ernst Kohlberg and became one of the city's most tireless reformers. She helped found the study circles that grew into the El Paso Woman's Club and led the creation of the first free public kindergarten in Texas in the 1890s. She was instrumental in building the city's public library and a founder of Temple Mount Sinai, and she lent her energy to a long list of health and charity organizations shaped by reform Judaism and Progressive Era ideals.
El Paso High School
El Paso, TX
Completed in 1916, El Paso High School was the city's first purpose-built high school and remains its oldest surviving one. The noted firm Trost and Trost designed a classical-revival landmark in the foothills of the Franklin Mountains, folding the athletic field into the academic plan and adding then-novel touches like a rooftop garden, a cadet armory, and skylit laboratories.