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City expansion under Porfirio Díaz

The city expanded significantly thanks to Porfirio Díaz 's free-trade policy, creating a new retail and service sector along the old Calle del Comercio (now Vicente Guerrero) and September 16 Avenue. A bullring opened in 1899. The Escobar brothers founded the city's first institution of higher education in 1906, the Escuela Particular de Agricultura. That same year, a series of public works are inaugurated, including the city's sewage and drainage system, as well as potable water. A public library, schools, new public market (the old Mercado Cuauhtémoc) and parks dotted the city, making it one of many Porfirian showcases.

Modern hotels and restaurants were built to cater the increased international railroad traffic from the 1880s onwards. However, national and foreign opposition to the "disloyal" commercial rivalry of the free zone was not long in coming and the Mexican government was forced to modify the status of the free zone in 1891. To this must be added the worldwide devaluation of silver and water scarcity, which generated a severe economic crisis in the city, causing a significant number of workers to flee to the United States. As a result of the collapse of commercial activities and population, Ciudad Juárez focused on tourism as an economic activity at the beginning of the 20th century, particularly promoting "diversions", thus beginning "the moment of scandal"

In 1909, Díaz and William Howard Taft planned a summit in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, a historic first meeting between a Mexican and a U.S. president, and also the first time a U.S. president would cross the border into Mexico. But tensions rose on both sides of the border over the disputed Chamizal strip connecting Ciudad Juárez to El Paso, even though it would have been considered neutral territory with no flags present during the summit. The Texas Rangers, 4,000 U.S. and Mexican troops, U.S. Secret Service agents, FBI agents and U.S. marshals were all called in to provide security. Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, was put in charge of a 250 private security detail hired by John Hays Hammond. On October 16, the day of the summit, Burnham and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route. Burnham and Moore captured, disarmed, and arrested the assassin within only a few feet of Díaz and Taft.