forty-six years. Close competitors for long service include C. F. Zinkan and the late R. W. Robinson.

Present members of the fire department include Kenneth E. Lebo, chief; Frank Benedict, assistant chief and J. Williston McHugh, Secretary. At present there are 18 members.

ENTERTAINMENT. Prior to 1882 the Strathman Hall was the center of amusement in the community. Dances were held there, stock companies and vaudeville teams performed, including Tom Thumb and his troupe of midgets, and stereopticon peep shows were all held in the third floor theatre.

An artificial ice pond was created by I. Lemon and his sons in the southeast part of town and enclosed with a high board fence. For some years it was a popular skating rink, and professional skaters came here from Chicago and other places to compete in prize contests offered by the management. Professor Currier's brass band, of which Dick Lemon was a member, provided music for these night sessions. A large building was erected at the pond as an adjunct to the rink.

In 1894 the El Paso Opera House Company was formed with fifty stockholders, and planned the present theatre building at Front and Cherry on ground which they purchased from J. M. Worley. As the Masonic bodies had recently lost their rooms in the fire, the two groups combined forces and a two story building was erected, the second floor being the Masonic Temple. The building committee included W. W. Stafford, William R. Fleming and Edwin E. Somers for the company, and William R. Fleming, Louis M. Kerr and George R. Curtiss for the Masons.

In addition to the stock companies and vaudeville teams which were billed at the new theatre we find mention of "moving pictures and illustrated songs" being presented by a "company which carries special equipment which will throw reproductions on 225 square feet of canvas; the subjects are varied, both comic and instructive."

The theatre was finally purchased by A. E. Fleming and operated by various managers, Dr. A. C. King serving the longest period. J. E. Schlink and his son Harold purchased the business May 30, 1931 and continued it until December 1, 1951. They sold it to Elza Myers, who in turn sold to the Rist Brothers who operate it today.

We find the motion pictures came to the El Paso Theatre as regular entertainment in June of 1912, The Journal noting that "El Paso is finally on the map as a moving picture town; manager Ed Shaw has equipped the house with modern apparatus and plans two shows every night except Sunday."

Stock companies left the local theatre about 1910 and for the next twenty years or so, one or two groups would set up a tent theatre in town and play for five or six nights, changing the bill each night. The Callahan Company was the most popular of these. Perhaps the final stock show in the Opera House was around 1925 when Dr. Sidney P.

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