author
W. W. (William Wallace) Mills
1836–1913
A vivid first-person chronicler of early El Paso, he turned decades of frontier experience into a memoir full of war, politics, border life, and local legend. His writing offers listeners a rare eyewitness view of the Southwest as it changed in the second half of the nineteenth century.
1 Audiobook
Forty Years at El Paso, 1858-1898
by W. W. (William Wallace) Mills
About the author
Born in Indiana in 1836, William Wallace Mills became one of the best-known early Anglo residents of El Paso. Reliable archival and reference sources describe him not only as a writer, but also as a soldier, businessman, customs collector, consul, and political figure whose life was closely tied to the U.S.–Mexico border.
Mills is remembered today chiefly for Forty Years at El Paso, 1858-1898, published in 1901. The book draws on his own experiences and helps preserve a firsthand picture of El Paso during years of conflict, growth, and constant change. Its appeal comes from that direct, personal voice: this is history told by someone who was there.
His papers, preserved in Texas archives, suggest a life deeply involved in public affairs as well as literature. For listeners interested in memoir, regional history, and the American Southwest, his work stands out as an energetic and unusually personal account of nineteenth-century borderland life.