Pancho Villa worked as a laborer here before the revolution. (Source: Dr. R. H. Ellis, Intimate Recollections of People Who Knew Villa.) The American Smelting and Refining Company was established in El Paso in 1887. The smelting company was owned by the multimillionaire Guggenheim family of New York. They also owned various smelters throughout Mexico which were often the target of raids by Pancho Villa and other revolutionaries. During the revolution, the International Workers of the World tried to organize at this plant without much success. Behind ASARCO, there still exists the Smeltertown cemetery where Mexican smelter workers were buried. Many of these workers were revolutionary sympathizers.
