NEWS RELEASE
The El Paso County Historical Commission
The Magoffin Home Companeros
Capstone Productions Inc.
For Immediate Release
May 7, 2007
Contact Jackson Polk, 915-833-8700
Premiere of the MAGOFFIN UPDATE 2008 TV Program
El Paso, TX ----- The premiere of a new DVD updating the renovations to the Magoffin Home, a Texas State Historic Site in El Paso, will be free and open to the public at 3pm on Sunday, May 18, 2008 at the El Paso Museum of History in Downtown El Paso, Texas. The new DVD contains the entire 52-minutes of the original TV program called “El Paso’s Magoffin Home,” which was produced in 2003 by Capstone Productions Inc., plus 16 minutes of new material that shows the 2005 restoration in detail.
The premiere will be hosted by the Casa Magoffin Companeros, the friends group at the Magoffin Home. Funding for the Magoffin Update 2008 was provided by the El Paso County Historical Commission and in part by Humanities Texas, the State partner of the National Endowment of the Humanities. Archive footage and additional digital television production was provided by Capstone Productions Inc.
“The State restored the Magoffin Home in 2005 to the way the Home looked and functioned when its builder, four-time El Paso Mayor Joseph Magoffin, lived there,” said Bernie Sargent, Chairman of the El Paso County Historical Commission. “We then needed to update the 2003 DVD to reflect the current Home’s look, which is now back to the 1896 look,” Sargent said. “The restoration was based on photographs of the Home from the 1890s.”
“The Magoffin Companeros always help the Home where possible, including paying for some of the restoration and the original DVD,” said Pres Dehrkoop, President of the Casa Magoffin Companeros. “We are pleased to help promote the Home with this Magoffin Home Update 2008,” she said. “And we are grateful to Jackson Polk at Capstone Productions for his work on both the 2003 DVD and this Update 2008,” Dehrkoop said.
The new 16-minute tour of the Home in 2008 shows the changes in the Home as the State of Texas turned the clock backward from the 1930 look of the Josephine era, to the time of 1896 when Joseph Magoffin lived there. He was El Paso mayor four times and a pioneer in most of the City’s utility companies. Joseph’s daughter, Josephine Magoffin Glasgow, inherited her parent’s home and changed the style and use of the five main historic rooms in 1930.
The 2005 restoration tour is guided by Magoffin Home volunteer docent Sharon Cowell. She explains the Home’s Victorian era decoration of the 1890s, and shows off the Home’s original furniture from that period.
The Premiere will be at the El Paso Museum of History, 510 N. Santa Fe Street downtown at Cleveland Square. Meter parking is free on Sunday, May 18th, and there are additional paid lots in the area. The Magoffin Companeros will have DVDs for sale at the premiere and producer Jackson Polk will be there to talk about the production of the DVD.
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