Эль-Пасо қаласының Франклин таулары мемлекеттік паркі

Texas state park in El Paso, Texas

Franklin Mountains State Park is a Texas state park in El Paso, Texas, that protects the Franklin Mountains. Park headquarters are located at an elevation of 5426 feet (1654 m) with the highest peak, North Franklin Mountain, reaching 7192 feet (2192 m). It is one of the largest urban parks in the nation lying completely within city limits, covering Franklin Mountains State Park is open year round for recreational hiking, mountain biking, picnicking and scenic driving and vistas.

Native Americans and other travelers have used the natural resources in the Franklin Mountains when crossing the gap between the Franklin Mountains and the Juarez Mountains that is now Ciudad Juárez across the Rio Grande in Mexico and El Paso. Pictograms and mortar pits confirm a human presence in the mountains dating back more than 12,000 years. Despite the town being officially named El Paso in 1852, the locals continued to call it Franklin throughout the 1850s. The El Paso Tin Mining and Smelting Company operated a tin mine on the northeast slope of North Franklin Mountain from 1909 to 1915. While the mine had the distinction of being the only tin mine ever located in the U. S., it was an economic failure. Efforts to grant protected status to the Franklin Mountains began as early as 1925. A real estate developer sought to build housing on the mountains and in 1979 he built a road up into them. A local organization known as the Wilderness Park Coalition was able to convince the Texas Legislature to protect the mountains in 1979. Despite this success the legislature, in the same bill, prohibited funding for the development, operation and maintenance of the park. The property was formally acquired in 1981.

The Franklin Mountains are 23 mile (37 km) long and 3 mile (5 km) wide and stretch from El Paso into New Mexico. The Franklins were formed due to crustal extension related to the Cenozoic Rio Grande rift. Although the present topography of the range and adjoining basins is controlled by extension during rifting in the last 10 million years, faults within the range also record deformation during the Laramide orogeny, between 85 and 45 million years ago. The highest peak is North Franklin Mountain at 7192 feet (2192 m). North Franklin Peak can be accessed via a trail located east of Mundy's Gap. The mountains are composed primarily of sedimentary rock with some igneous intrusions. Geologists refer to them as tilted block fault mountains and in them can be found billion year old Precambrian rocks, the oldest in Texas.