Sunset School was announced in the May 31, 1902 El Paso Times as a four-room school for the Fourth Ward, to be located at the corner of W. Rio Grande and El Paso streets. The architect for this "little" project was the well-established Edward Kneezell, who, along with his arch-rival Ernest Krause, was raking in most of the school building commissions at the time. Sunset was opened in September, 1902 one week late, with less than 40 students. The first principal was Miss Margaret Maule. The structure stands today at the west end of the complex, although Kneezell's design is gone - remodeled by the firm of Trost & Trost in 1925 as part of the Vocational School erection.
Late 1924 saw the growing City of El Paso's need for a Vocational School Building. The city had been renting facilities for some time throughout town for these classes, but wanted to consolidate into one location. Public sentiment at the time was to rent one large existing building, however the school budget was overrunning with cash from a recent Bond Issue, so in April of 1924 they decided that a new building would be "needed".
The south side of West Rio Grande between Kneezell's Sunset School, which had been recently renamed Neill School, and Oregon Street was undeveloped, so that strip of land was purchased for the Vocational School. It was decided that the new structure would be connected to the old Sunset/Niell campus. In early February Trost & Trost was awarded the commission for the new building, and Ramey Brothers Construction won the bidding war with their $130,000 note placed on February 24.
The Trost & Trost building was opened during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 9, 1925, and school commenced. The El Paso Times reported that over 8,000 citizens attended the ceremony.
According to the architectural firm, the building is designed in the Spanish style. Erection cost, including furnishings and equipment, was a cool $170,000, 130k of it just for the structure.
The building stands today in great condition, although it shows its age. It is currently part of the El Paso Community College. Today, we were able to take some fresh pictures of the old structure, and it did not disappoint.
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Text, research and modern photography provided to Sketchclub.net by Mark Stone, citing period newspaper articles accessed at
newspapers.com. Also citing El Paso City Directories from 1902, 1903, 1918, 1920 and 1922, accessed at the UNT Digital Archives at
https://texashistory.unt.edu/
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| 1925 Photo courtesy of the Aultman Collection at the El Paso Public Library |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 05/05/2021 |
