La Tuna

Product photo
Promotion: Nearby Map of El Paso County

Anthony is on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and State Highway 20 sixteen miles northwest of downtown El Paso on the Texas-New Mexico border in El Paso County. It was reportedly named by a Mexican-American woman who built a chapel to St. Anthony of Padua sometime before 1884. A post office was established on the El Paso County side in March of that year but was never in operation. The Texas community later became known as La Tuna, after the Federal Correctional Institution located there, at which a post office was open from 1932 to 1965. In the early 1940s the population was estimated at only twenty, but ten years later, after the community incorporated as Anthony, the population estimate had grown to 1,200. It declined to 1,082 in the early 1960s, then grew to 2,154 in the early 1970s, 2,640 in the early 1980s, and 3,328 in 1990. The population grew to 3,850 in 2000. A post office was established in Anthony in 1981. In 1988 the Anthony Chamber of Commerce named the town the Leap Year Capital of the World, and the Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club, open to anyone born on February 29, had more than 100 members by 1992.

Continue Reading

Martin Donell Kohout | © TSHA

Handbook of Texas Logo

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.

Belongs to

La Tuna is part of or belongs to the following places:

Currently Exists

No

Place type

La Tuna is classified as a Town

Associated Names

  • (Anthony)

Location

Latitude: 31.98093480
Longitude: -106.59054720

Has Post Office

No

Is Incorporated

No