{"nrhp_refnum":"96000131","name":"Rio Vista Farm Historic District","other_names":["El Paso County Poor Farm","Camp Rio Vista","Bracero Center"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"800--801 Rio Vista Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Socorro","county":"El Paso County","state":"TX","lat":31.662019000000072,"lon":-106.26480544436399,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1996-02-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History","Politics/Government","Agriculture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A roughly 14-acre historic district of institutional buildings northwest of Socorro, El Paso County, Texas, built as the El Paso County Poor Farm in 1915 and expanded in 1935-36 with an adobe quadrangle camp. It includes 17 contributing resources.","why_significant":"The district preserves the County Poor Farm, begun in 1915, and the 1935 Camp Rio Vista built by the Texas Transient Bureau and the WPA to house and employ transient workers. The buildings keep their basic forms, materials and fenestration, and the surrounding agricultural setting is largely unchanged. The later Bracero Center is noted for possible future evaluation.","narrative":"Rio Vista Farm began in 1915 when El Paso County bought land near Socorro and established a poor farm on part of it. The brick Main Building, with a cruciform plan of four angled wings around a central core, shows Prairie School influence and once housed inmates in separate wards. In 1935 the Texas Transient Bureau and the Works Progress Administration added a quadrangle of adobe buildings called Camp Rio Vista. Plans were drawn by E.R. Nilson. The buildings have stucco finishes, curvilinear Mission Revival parapets and canopies linking them, and include a mess hall, dormitories, offices, an infirmary and a school. The camp sheltered unemployed workers during the Depression and put them to work farming county land. Of 21 original buildings, 17 survive with enough integrity to count as contributing. Later additions, including a 1952 superintendent's residence now used as a sheriff's substation, do not contribute. Cotton fields still surround the complex and keep its early twentieth-century rural setting.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Texas Transient Bureau and WPA (1935 complex); E.R. Nilson (camp plans); Percy McGhee (construction supervisor, 1935)","architectural_style":"Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival; Prairie School","criteria":[],"status_note":"Most resources are one-story buildings that are vacant or used for storage and are generally in good condition. The Main Building houses sheriff's department offices.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:23.716114-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/0/9719/40971900/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/96000131.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40971900","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q109999588"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/el-paso-county/rio-vista-farm-historic-district-96000131/"}