Anson Mills Building, Chicago School skyscraper in El Paso, Texas.
The Anson Mills Building is a 12-story skyscraper at the intersection of North Oregon Street and West Mills Street in El Paso. The structure was built with a reinforced concrete frame and stands approximately 145 feet tall.
Anson Mills hired Henry C. Trost of Trost & Trost to design the building, which rose in 1910–1911 on the site of the 1832 Ponce de León ranch. Trost was the region's pioneer of reinforced concrete, and the firm kept its offices there until 1920. The Mills family sold the building in 1965.
The building displays vertical lines and decorative details that follow Chicago School design principles. These features remain visible and shape how the structure looks when you walk past it.
The building stands on a corner site at 303 North Oregon Street, opposite San Jacinto Plaza, so the curved facade wrapping the south and east sides can be seen from the plaza and the surrounding sidewalks. The interior holds offices and is not open for tours; the exterior is what visitors come to see.
The Anson Mills Building was the second concrete-frame skyscraper in the United States and, at 145 feet, the tallest building in El Paso when it was completed. In 1974 its windows were replaced with vertical bands of mirrored glass, which changed how the facade reads from the street.
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