Fort Bliss — one of the largest U.S. Army posts, over a million acres; the Army has been in El Paso since 1848.
As you come down into the northeast side of the city, you're skirting the edge of Fort Bliss — and this is no ordinary Army post. It's one of the largest military installations in the entire country, sprawling across more than a million acres of desert and mountain up into New Mexico, bigger than some whole states. The Army came to El Paso back in eighteen forty-eight, and Fort Bliss has been here in one form or another ever since — cavalry chasing raiders, a great training center for soldiers in two World Wars, and today the home of an armored division and the Army's air-defense school. All that empty desert that once made this country so hard to police is exactly what makes it perfect for the Army: room to maneuver, to fire, to train, under a sky that's clear three hundred days a year. A huge share of this city works or serves out here. At its heart, El Paso is an Army town.
Photo: formulanone · CC BY-SA 2.0
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