When it was dedicated on 21 May 1942 - with a chuck-wagon dinner of barbecue and beans for nearly 7,000 guests - the El Paso County Coliseum was reckoned the largest and finest structure of its kind between Los Angeles, Denver and Fort Worth. Architect Percy McGhee designed the building and contractor R.E. McKee raised it for 321,000 dollars at 4100 East Paisano Drive, opening as the El Paso County Live Stock and Agricultural Exhibition Building with the Sheriff's Posse Rodeo as its first event. Its early years read like wartime history. From 1943 to 1944 the coliseum housed Italian prisoners of war; the Texas State Guard used it as headquarters in 1946; and in the 1950s it served as a processing centre for braceros entering the United States to work. In 1972 it hosted the national convention of La Raza Unida Party, a landmark of the Chicano civil rights movement that brought Corky Gonzales, Reies Lopez Tijerina and Jose Angel Gutierrez under one roof. Preservation Texas listed the building among the state's endangered places in 2023 amid border-infrastructure expansion plans. Between the history lessons, the coliseum has simply been El Paso's gathering barn for eighty years: Elvis, wrestling's Guerrero dynasty, Lucha Libre, Disney on Ice, roller derby, boxing, circuses and decades of concerts. UTEP basketball called it home in 1967 while the Special Events Center was built, and the indoor-soccer Coyotes and minor-league hockey have both tenanted it. A 9.5-million-dollar renovation in 2004 modernised the systems while keeping the long-span 1942 shell. Seated capacity runs about 6,500, stretching toward 11,000 for centre-stage concerts, and the surrounding county fairgrounds handle overflow events, gun shows and the rodeo stock that remains part of the venue's identity. The location puts it in south-central El Paso hard against the Bridge of the Americas, ten minutes from downtown with big free parking lots - one reason promoters keep booking it despite newer rooms. For visitors it is a working piece of borderland history: the same floor has held POWs, braceros, civil-rights conventions and seven decades of Saturday nights.

Type: Stadium / Arena

Address: 4100 East Paisano Street, El Paso, TX, United States, 79905

Website: https://www.epcoliseum.com

Capacity: 6500

Opening Date: 21/05/1942

Serves Food

Accessible