Smelter Cemetery
El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established 1882 Historic Texas Cemetery – 2015
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Smelter Cemetery, established in 1882, took its name from the great ASARCO smelting works that made El Paso an industrial powerhouse of the Southwest. The surrounding neighborhood, largely Mexican-American, housed the laborers who fed the furnaces that processed ore from across the region. The cemetery, now a Historic Texas Cemetery, is the resting place of that working community.
Why it matters
It records the human cost and community of heavy industry on the border, where smelter work drew and sustained a largely immigrant labor force for generations.
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Themes & tags
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