The design phase calling for an extensive reconstruction of a busy east central El Paso throughway is expected to begin sometime in 2025, with the actual work slated to start the following year.
The Buffalo Soldier Road runs between Montana Avenue and Interstate 10, just to the northwest of downtown El Paso. Its naming made national news in the summer of 2020 when members of the El Paso City Council decided to do away with what had been called Robert E. Lee Road.
While Lee Road, honoring the Confederacy’s greatest most famous General, endured for decades, it was discarded during a national season of renaming Confederate buildings and streets.
Council members then decided to put a positive spin on matters by naming the road after the famous Buffalo Soldiers, a group of several U.S. Army regiments in the years after the Civil War who were black and protected and patrolled vast stretches of the American West.
One regiment, watching guard over El Paso, was housed at nearby Fort Bliss.
Now up to $8.4 million in funding has been secured to modernize the Buffalo Soldier Road, adding new sidewalks, bicycle facilities, street lighting, and irrigation, among other features.
The work, remarked El Paso Council member Cassandra Hernandez, is a testament to the City of El Paso “honoring its past and forging a dynamic future.”
In comments prepared for the El Paso Times, Hernandez added that the road reconstruction project will “transform the area’s infrastructure, enhancing safety and accessibility for everyone, especially visitors staying at nearby hotels.”
The $8.4 million is coming through the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Commission.
If all goes as planned, actual work on the Buffalo Soldier Road will begin during the winter of 2026-2027.
By Garry Boulard
