Benjamin Shacklett Dowell, El Pasos first mayor (1873), was born in Meade County Kentucky in 1818. He was not your ordinary politician, he led a full, adventurous life. He served in Company G, 1st Regiment, Kentucky Cavalry, and fought in the Mexican American War in 1846-1847 until he was captured and held as a prisoner of war. After the war he came to El Paso to work for Juan Maria Ponce de Leon on his ranch that would become downtown El Paso. He also served as a Captain in the Confederate Army, supplying the troops. Uncle Ben (a nickname he acquired due to his white beard) owned the B. Dowell Saloon which sat on the southeast corner of the Camino Real Hotel. It was a one story adobe structure that boasted a pool table and an attached hotel. This was a rough saloon, even Billy the Kid stopped in for a drink before heading to San Elizario to bust his friend out of jail there in 1877. Many killings took place either in his saloon or right in front, to include the execution of four drunk rowdies. Four strangers, drunk on El Paso whisky, commenced to terrorizing the small, dusty town and killed someone in front of the Dowell Saloon. Ben Dowell, the city Marshall at the time, as well as Mayor (there were fewer than 500 people in El Paso) arrested the four with help from his deputies. A court found the four guilty of first degree murder, the hearing taking place in Dowells Saloon, and they were sentenced to death. There werent any trees high enough to hang them from, nor was there any lumber to waste on a gallows, so it was decided they would be executed by firing squad. Dowell and his deputies were ordered by the judge to carry out the executions in front of the saloon on El Paso Street. They were buried out in the desert, where the public library is now. The Dowell Saloon went on to become the Manning Saloon, the location of the four dead in five seconds gunfight. Benjamin Uncle Ben Dowell died as a result of pneumonia, contracted after repairing an irrigation canal on his ranch west of town. He was buried in Concordia Cemetery in 1880, but his location is unknown, although his decendents headstones are often mistaken for his. There is a rumor that his bones lie under the street, in front of L&Js cafe.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 20:44:51 +0000
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