In 2013, El Paso's City Council approved the name change on this building from the Luther Building to the John Mulligan Building as a part of its historic rehabilitation to be completed by In*Situ Architecture. As it stands today, it is a beautiful restoration and home to first floor retail, and City of El Paso offices.
John Mulligan, a Contractor and "Railroad Man", purchased the land for this building in the first week of April, 1915 for a cool $25,000 from Thomas Craven, who had operated a Horse and Mule dealership at the site up until then (El Paso Herald, 4/05/1915). Construction began shortly afterwards, and the building was completed around 1 year later in late April or May 1916. Most historical sources, including the building's owner, incorrectly date the completion of this building to 1915; however Electrical work (El Paso Morning Times, 2/09/1916), Plumbing (El Paso Morning Times, 3/06/1916) and Painting (El Paso Morning Times, 2/20/1916) continued well into 1916.
We are unable to find period documentation that identifies the architect, but we strongly lean towards Otto Thorman as the artist. This building is strongly reminiscent of the Thorman designed Zelman Building (Savoy Lofts, NE corner of Overland and Stanton) which was erected in 1915.
The In*Situ restoration of the exterior won the AIA Merit Award for Historic Preservation and the Mayor's Award by the AIA in 2014 (http://insituarc.weebly.com/mulligan-building.html). Since then, the building has been beautifully maintained.
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Text and research provided to the El Paso Sketch Club by Mark Stone. This historical narrative is derived from newspaper articles and City Directory entries accessed through the Library of Congress' Chronicling America project at https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ and the University of North Texas (Denton) Digital Archives at https://texashistory.unt.edu/
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| Undated Harry Blumenthal image courtesy of the El Paso Public Library via the UNT Archives at https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth613712/?q=Luther%20Building |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 5/26/2020 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 5/26/2020 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 5/26/2020 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 5/26/2020 |
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| Photograph taken by Mark Stone 5/26/2020 |
