We stayed at the newly opened Hotel El Capitan in Van Horn over the weekend. The hotel was built by Charles Bassett of El Paso and opened in 1930. It was one of five hotels that he built in west Texas and eastern New Mexico for the Gateway Hotel chain. He commissioned notable architect Henry Trost of Trost and Trost in El Paso for the architectural design. Although smaller, the interior is similar to the El Paisano in Marfa, also designed by Henry Trost for Gateway Hotels.
The hotel was bought by the Van Horn State Bank in the 1970s and converted into an office building. Restoration to an hotel, which began a year ago, involved installing new bathrooms – the bank had removed the originals.
