By Tatiana Rodriguez
The Lincoln Cultural Center in Lincoln Park has been around for over a century, housing a part of South Central El Paso's history. Its history dates to the mid-1800s as a school for military children of Camp Concordia in a settlement established by Hugh Stephenson. During the 1910s, the school was renamed Abraham Lincoln and served as a segregated school for Mexican American and African American children in the area. Ownership of the land has changed many times, with Stephenson and his wife, Juana Maria Azcarate, as the original owners.1 In 1923, the city gave the deed to the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD). Then, in 1969, EPISD handed it over to the State of Texas, which leased it to the city under an agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDoT) to build a freeway interchange known as the Spaghetti Bowl that crisscrosses above Lincoln Park. Lincoln School was also closed during that same year.
Due to highway expansion, minorities were geographically split, with African American communities on the north side and Mexican American communities on the south side of the freeway, where Lincoln School was located. In 1970, "a resolution was approved for the local government to use the building under a lease with the state, and a remodel was approved in 1975."2 From 1977 to 1987, the Lincoln Cultural Center served as the office for the city of El Paso's parks administration, the nonprofit LULAC Project Amistad, which serves senior citizens and people with disabilities, and Project Bravo. The center had a recreation room with pool tables, meeting room, classrooms, and a gallery with monthly exhibits by local artists and photographers. During this time, the city spent over $210,000 on renovations.3
Over the next ten years, from 1987 to 1997, the more than 110-year-old community center continued serving as administration offices and featured monthly exhibitions, but it lost programs previously available to the community. According to city documents, this was mainly because the population in the area decreased, and other centers that provided activities and services to youth and older people were built in nearby neighborhoods. In September 2005, Lincoln Park Day, a yearly festival featuring murals, lowriders, and music celebrating Chicano culture, held its first celebration. This festival was inspired by similar events held in Chicano Park in San Diego. Then, in the summer of the following year, heavy rain brought floods, causing severe damage to the area. "The Lincoln Center was used as a rescue station for people escaping the flooding in the Saipan-Ledo neighborhood, where 56 homes were destroyed."4 The city of El Paso closed the cultural center, citing water damage.5
On May 20, 2014, the Lincoln Center was set to be demolished to make way for the highway expansion project by TxDot. Community activists and residents of the area formed a human chain around the center as they faced off with work crews to successfully stop the demolition. Plans remain in place for the building to house the Mexican American Cultural Institute (MACI), an El Paso nonprofit organization. Founded in 2016, the organization wants to turn the building into a cultural center with an art gallery, dance studio, gift shop, and theater. In January 2022, MACI made a deal with TxDot to lease the Lincoln Center for 25 years with an extension of ten more.6 Today, the center remains vacant as Lincoln Park still features the large murals on the columns that hold up the freeway above.
Right: Lincoln Park School (1915), grades 1-6. One of a fairly recent type of elementary school buildings, in the southeastern section of the city, capacity of about 400. http://lincolnparkcc.org/history/.
Footnotes:
1 Next City, Jul. 26, 2023. https://nextcity.org/features/how-el-paso-activists-kept-a-historic-center-from-demolition.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Juarez, Miguel, 2014. http://lincolnparkcc.org/history/.
5 El Paso Matters, Jul. 26, 2023. https://elpasomatters.org/2023/07/26/el-paso-lincoln-center-awaits-renovations-after-spared-demolition/#:~:text=History%20of%20Lincoln%20Center&text=In%20the%201910s%2C%20it%20was,under%20an%20agreement%20with%20TXDoT.
6 Ibid.
Lincoln Park, "Chicano Park 2" in El Paso, Texas. Shout Out to Our Sister Park in Chuco Town! Lincoln Park C.C. https://www.facebook.com/CPSteeringCommittee/videos/804003970499805/
Comentários