Conrad Hilton lived for years in the tower in front of you, the Plaza Hotel at 106 Mills Avenue, a landmark skyscraper over downtown El Paso since the dawn of the Depression. The block itself holds stories: the Sheldon Hotel that once stood here burned on April 9, 1929, after serving as the unofficial headquarters for many participants in the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920s) from both sides of the border. In the fall of 1929 Conrad Hilton began construction on this very site; nineteen days later the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began, yet work pressed on.
On November 30, 1930, the Hilton Hotel opened — rising 239 feet (73 m) to eclipse the O. T. Bassett Tower and become the city’s tallest building, a title it has since yielded but remains the fifth tallest in El Paso. Designed by Trost & Trost, the building is a 19‑story Art Deco structure of reinforced cast‑in‑place concrete, with setbacks at the 16th and 17th floors, brown brick and concrete facing, and a Ludowici clay‑tiled pyramidal roof. Conrad Hilton lived here for many years, as did his mother.
Notice the setbacks at the sixteenth and seventeenth floors, the Ludowici clay tiles crowning the roof, and the largely unaltered exterior Conrad Hilton once called home.