About Buena Vista

The village of Buena Vista, now part of El Paso, Texas,  is home to descendants of the laborers, artisans, and professionals who worked to make El Paso a thriving American city. Built by Mexicans and Americans during the latter years of the Border Industrial Revolution (based largely on metal ore refining) the village, which began its settlement in the 1920’s, is tied deeply by blood and kinship to the nearby communities of Smeltertown (destroyed in 1972 for environmental reasons) and La Calavera.

Eyewitness to the Mexican Revolution—General Madero erected a camp for the Battle of Juarez across the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo from Smeltertown—and with living memories of smuggling and other border excitements, the surviving settlements remain a unique enclave of border life and culture.

Part of this rich cultural heritage is the practice and appreciation of the folk arts and fine arts. Music, visual arts and sculpture, landscaping and gardens, even the self-built adobe homes of the residents reflect an authentic aesthetic sense that only native beauty and cultural continuity can afford to the hardworking.

The loss of Smeltertown and the dispersal of its inhabitants remind us of the fragility of the communities in the narrow Paso del Norte, and make their survival all the more critical to historical and cultural memory.