At the western tip of Texas, on the left bank of the Rio Grande, which here forms the frontier with Mexico, is El Paso, the largest American city on the Mexican frontier, with a population of over half a million. As well as separating the two countries, the river also divides El Paso from the Mexican city of Ciudad Ju?rez, El Paso's San Jacinto
Plaza still remains an air of bygone days. The El Paso Museum of Art has a fine collection of pre-Columbian and Indian art and the Kress Collection (works of the Italian Renaissance). The Chamizal National Memorial, a beautiful park on the banks of the Rio Grande, commemorates the settlement of the long-standing dispute over the frontier line between the United States and Mexico. Outside, occupying the site of a military post established in 1846, is Fort Bliss, today one of the largest air defence centres in the world, to which Allied personnel are sent for training. On the base there are three military museums.