Has there been a busier fall for the Trost Society? We’d say not, but then again we are spending as much time as possible out and about in El Paso’s historic neighborhoods enjoying the fall weather. Not to mention launching our wonderfully successful “Trost in the Borderlands” program for 7th and 8th graders, hosting “Rebuilding Trost” – our largest fundraiser to date, and getting ready to launch our “Traveling the Trost Trail” tour program.
Starting this past August, the Trost Society has partnered with local middle schools, FabLab El Paso, Adventures in Learning, and the El Paso Museum of History to host our Trost in the Borderlands educational series. The program empowers young El Pasoans attending middle school in El Paso to actively participate in their city’s development by helping them to think critically about how the built environment impacts their quality of life. The project makes the process of historic preservation and learning about history accessible to students by using fun and exciting technology to build their own version of a historic downtown. These activities will also promote children’s exposure to STEAM and help raise their interest in careers such as engineering and architecture, providing them with skills that can later be re-applied back into their community. Since starting the program, we have hosted over 100 students and plan to bring in as many students as possible. We are very grateful for the support we have received from El Paso MCAD, the Summerlee Foundation, Humanities Texas, El Paso Electric, and the National Trust of Historic Preservation among others to host this wonderful program.
We were delighted with the turnout for our Rebuilding Trost event, with some 300 people attending, and truly appreciated the tremendous amount of support we received from the artists and vendors, whose artworks allowed us to raise just over $20,000 to support our “Trost in the Borderlands” workshop. The fundraiser was distinguished in its use of the historic Centre Building and Anson Mills Building to help our community understand the enormous potential for historic architecture to be the center of a new, revived cultural economy. The fundraiser drew attention to the major efforts on the part of the Trost Society to create a heritage economy that resonates both with our community at large and visitors to the region. Without culture and heritage to draw our community together, we lack the ingredients necessary to create a collective identity that elevates El Paso to a city that is known for its vibrancy and traditions.
The Trost Society is most excited for our “Traveling the Trost Trail” tour program, a one of a kind experience that travels from El Paso, Texas to Tucson, Douglas, and Bisbee Arizona in search of some of Trost & Trost’s most iconic Arizonan architecture! The Trost & Trost Architectural Firm is best known for their iconic buildings which dominate El Paso’s downtown skyline, but over the course of four decades, the firm would build some 600 buildings across the Southwest, including in Phoenix, Tucson, Bisbee, Douglas, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Deming, El Paso, Marfa, and Austin. The Trost Society has launched the Traveling the Trost Trail program to educate our community about the many Trost buildings in our region by traveling to each city and experiencing the best of what each place has to offer, starting with this trip to Tucson. We have worked very hard to create a fun, educational, and memorable four-day experience that will hopefully lead to other trips to Trost & Trost buildings across the region! Visit our events page for more information, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram for updates to this and the many other programs that we host year-round.
We invite you to join us at one of our upcoming events and mingle with other Trost Society members and members of the community that are just as passionate about preserving our architectural history as you are. If you’d like to make a deeper impact on advancing our mission, we welcome new volunteers and new members to the organization.
Thank you for being a Trost supporter and advocate for historical preservation. There’s plenty of work to be done in our community and appreciate all that you do to spread the word and work of the Trost Society.