Mills, William Wallace

William Wallace Mills (1836–1913) was a soldier, businessman, customs collector, consul, and El Paso pioneer. Mills and his brother Anson, who named El Paso, were two of the very few anti-secession voters in El Paso in 1860. Mills went to New Mexico to fight with the Union, and was taken prisoner by Confederate forces during the Civil War. In his post-occupation position of United States collector of customs at El Paso, Mills worked towards an 1862 congressional act that allowed for the confiscation of property of those who had fought against the Union.

Mills took on a leadership position during Reconstruction in the moderate Republican party, led by A. J. Hamilton, and was appointed a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1868–69 in Austin. It was at this Convention that the radical majority elected Edmund J. Davis president. When the radicals went on to win the gubernatorial race in 1869, Mills was brought down from his post as collector of customs. This resulted in a virtual loss of his local power and as such, the end of his political career. Mills did, however, go on to serve as United States consul in Chihuahua, 1897-1907.

William Wallace Mills is the author of Forty Years at El Paso, his memoirs documenting the development and formation of that city. In 1910, Mills moved to Austin, and he died on February 10, 1913.

Source : Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. Mills, William Wallace, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/MM/fmi41.html (accessed June 1, 2010).