GPS City GuideEl PasoMagoffin Homestead

Stop 21 of 29 · El Paso audio walking tour

Magoffin Homestead

Magoffin Historic District · 1875 · Territorial-style adobe with Greek Revival

What you'll hear here: about 90 seconds on Magoffin Homestead — how it came to be, who it mattered to, and what to look for while you're standing in front of it.

Joseph Magoffin built the adobe home in front of you in 1875, and it remains the heart of the Magoffin Historic District. Built by pioneer Joseph Magoffin and lived in by him and his wife Octavia (MacGreal) until their deaths, this house still carries the presence of a family that occupied it for 109 years. The building is a distinctive combination of local adobe construction and Greek revival details — a clear example of the Territorial style.

Feel the idea of those thick adobe walls: they keep the house cool in the summer heat and warm in the winter. The residence unfolds in three wings, each added at a different time, the last built in the 1880s as the center that connected the earlier two. Inside there are 19 rooms, 8 fireplaces, and lofty 14-foot ceilings.

Many original furnishings remain on display, including an impressive 11.5-foot-tall half-tester bed. The home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and the surrounding area was declared the Magoffin Historic District on February 19, 1985; today it is the Magoffin Home State Historic Site under the authority of the Texas Historical Commission. Notice the thick adobe walls and the long porches that still shape this quiet corner of the neighborhood.

Where it is

Coordinates
31.7625, -106.47694
Area
Magoffin Historic District
Era
1875 · Territorial-style adobe with Greek Revival
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Three stops free. No account needed. The audio plays itself as you walk.