In the Shadow of Christ the King: The Smeltertown Community

In the 1880s, a small shanty town sprang up around the newly established El Paso smelting facility owned by the Kansas City Consolidated Smelting and Refining Company (later the American Smelting and Refining Company, or ASARCO). The place would eventually become known as Smeltertown and is mostly remembered now for a strike in 1913 and several bouts of lead poisoning in the 1970s that eventually led to the forced abandonment of the town. Beyond these facts, the lives of the predominantly Catholic Hispanic population in Smeltertown are not well remembered, even in the surrounding city of El Paso. When the residents were forced to relocate in 1975, they left behind homes they’d built, the church they’d fought for, and a lasting landmark that has become a famous part of the borderland skyline and an international symbol of Catholic unity. Mount Cristo Rey was funded in part and built by the Smeltertown parish of San Jose de Cristo Rey as a symbol of Catholicism’s resiliency, even in the face of such persecutions as Mexico’s anti-clerical laws and the atheist underpinnings of communism. To this day, Mount Cristo Rey remains an active pilgrimage site visited annually at Easter by the bishop of El Paso, a tradition that lends legitimacy to the lasting legacy of a community that no longer exists. This paper will explore the community founded by the Catholic Hispanics who built Smeltertown, along with the changes they faced and the lasting impact they left behind.