El Paso pioneer recalls early days, says he brought alligators to San Jacinto Plaza

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By 1920, El Paso pioneer J. Fisher Satterthwaite was living in San Diego, Calif. On a trip back to El Paso, he relayed to G.A. Martin of the El Paso Herald his recollections of early-day El Paso. This article ran Sept. 16, 1920:
El Paso police had headquarters in George Look's saloon on El Paso Street and "kept cases" for the gamblers between calls, back in the early '80s, according to J. Fisher Satterthwaite, a prominent citizen of El Paso at the time. Mr. Satterthwaite now resides in San Diego, Calif., but is here on a visit for a short time.
Mr. Satterthwaite was the first park commissioner of El Paso, receiving the appointment in 1882 and serving for five years. He admits responsibility for the alligators in San Jacinto Plaza. He says he brought three of them here from New Orleans in a cigar box; one of them died later, but two of the original 'gators are still in the park.
Mr. Satterthwaite built the first pond for the alligators, doing the work personally.
He came to El Paso from San Antonio, by stage, and was nine days making the trip. The stage turned over twice in one day and he carries a scar on one hand to this day as a result of an injury he received in one of the overturnings.
He says he was appointed park commissioner because he had been criticizing the aldermen. They were all gamblers, he says, and he called them "the knights of the green cloth." "I never accused them of stealing money," he says, "because there was nothing to steal, but they just wouldn't do anything. I was to get a salary of $100 a year for my work, but I never received a cent. About all the city council could raise was enough money to pay the police. We never had a cent for the park and the women of El Paso — Mrs. Jos. Magoffin, Mrs. Phil Dieter and others — kept the flowers blooming in the park. It was often very pretty.
"A big arroyo ran straight through the middle of the park, going off down through what is now Mesa Avenue. The (Southern Pacific) railroad had a pile bridge over the arroyo on the north side of the park, and it stood there for many years after I had filled up the arroyo. The filling of this arroyo, the first time a big rain came, caused the flooding of land west of the park and buried the railroad tracks in several inches of mud and sand. The railroad people wanted to make me open up the arroyo again and they kept the bridge in place for many years, although I had filled up the arroyo."
"I bought the Hart survey, about 360 acres of land, extending from the river along the north side of the railroad tracks, east to what is now Campbell Street and north to the mountains. My land included a large part of what is now San Jacinto Plaza and I donated it to the city. The city later stole Carnegie Square (site of the El Paso Public Library) from me.
"I spent $86,000 grading streets through my land and selling lots.
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"When the railroad came here in 1882, the city filled up with thugs, gamblers and thieves of all sorts. Citizens had to arm themselves with shotguns and sit out on the streets at night to preserve order. Fifty of them were made deputy city marshals to preserve order.
"Things became so bad that Dallas Stoudenmire was brought here from Indian Territory to 'clean up' the town. He had a record of having killed four men. He was sworn in at what served then as a city hall — a room in a beer saloon down San Francisco Street known as the 'Half Way House'; later it was known as Charlie Biesswenger's place.
"He then sauntered down the street, a long linen duster on and a pistol in each pocket. At the corner of San Antonio and El Paso streets, he was hissed by a gang there. He pulled his pistols and shot and killed four men. No inquest was held.
"That night, Stoudenmire went further down the street to a dance hall and variety theater, kept by his brother-in-law, 'Doc' Cummings, and ordered Cummings to close the place, as several killings had taken place there. Cummings drew his gun. Stoudenmire shot him dead and the place was closed.
"Sam Boring, a real estate man, who had a reputation as a sheriff and city marshal in California, was sworn in as assistant to Stoudenmire, and immediately secured from somewhere a ton of balls and chains. Summoning citizens with shotguns, he rounded up all the undesirables and marched them into a corral, where he locked the balls and chains on them.
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"Then he stationed the citizens with their shotguns loaded with small shot on the roofs of the adobe buildings around San Jacinto Plaza, and, taking 50 of his prisoners out of the stockade, he marched them up to the plaza, where he took the hardware off of them and told them to go to work helping me in the park.
"One of the men attracted his attention to something and the others, relieved of their balls and chains, started running. This was what Boring had counted on, and was the signal for the men on the roofs, armed with shotguns, to begin firing. The shot were only large enough to sting good and hard. Those 'undesirables' never quit running until they had permanently left El Paso.
"Fifty more were treated the same way in a short time, then another 50.
"That night, anybody could walk along any street in El Paso in perfect safety and that was the end of the reign of terror for El Paso.
"We had a semblance of law and order from that time forward. The news spread all over the country among bad men that El Paso was unhealthy for them."
Trish Long may be reached at [e-mail].
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso pioneer brought gators to Plaza from New Orleans in a cigar box