Missing amenity to nation’s largest urban park

​​​EL PASO – Covering 24,247 acres or 38 square miles, Franklin Mountains is the nation’s largest urban park.​

Established in the 1980s to save El Paso’s mountains from development, Franklin Mountains State Park has always lacked one amenity that other Texas state parks have.

That’s a visitor center with brochures, books, souvenirs and water bottles to buy and someone to tell visitors about the places to see, how to get there and what to look out for.​​

The new headquarters and visitor center will be built on the west side of the Franklins in the park’s Tom Mays Unit off Transmountain Rd. 

The park’s current full-time staff of eight includes a superintendent and six park rangers who manage a park that had nearly 61,000 visitors last year—up 12 percent over 2016.