Founded in 1913 as the State School of Mines and Metallurgy, it is the second oldest academic component of the University of Texas System.

It is the largest and oldest Hispanic-serving R1 university in the contiguous United States, exceeded only by institutions in Puerto Rico.

[7][8][9][10] The campus is on located on hillsides overlooking the Rio Grande river, with Ciudad Juárez in view across the Mexico–United States border.

The school officially opened on September 28, 1914, with 27 students in buildings belonging to the former El Paso Military Institute on a site adjacent to Fort Bliss on the Lanoria Mesa.

On October 29, 1916, a devastating fire destroyed the main building of the school, prompting its relocation.

In a period when United States architects were designing in styles adopted especially from Europe, Kathleen Worrell, wife of the university's dean, was attracted by photographs of the Kingdom of Bhutan in a 1914 issue of National Geographic magazine, which showed the dzong architecture style of its Buddhist monasteries.

[12] The resemblances between the local terrain and mountainous features of Bhutan inspired her to propose designing early buildings of the mining school in the dzong style.

Liking its distinctiveness, administrations have continued to choose that style for additional facilities, including the Sun Bowl football stadium and parking garages.

Dzong architecture has characteristics such as sloping sides, markedly overhanging roofs, and bands of colored decoration.

Notable events at UTEP include the training in 1961 of the nation's first Peace Corps class, the construction of Sun Bowl Stadium in 1963, and the winning of the 1966 NCAA basketball tournament.

When she stepped down in August 2019, she was the longest-serving sitting president of a major public research university.

[15] In June 2023 the university was placed on "Warning" status by its accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, after the accreditor's board found significant non-compliance with its standards for full-time faculty employment, program availability, qualified administrative staff, and academic program coordination.

[16] The University of Texas at El Paso is subdivided into nine colleges and schools, each of which offers a variety of degree programs including undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate.

Noting the similarity of mountainous Bhutan (which is in the Himalayas) to the location of the campus, she suggested the new buildings be in the style of Bhutanese dzongs (monastic fortresses), with massive sloping walls and overhanging roofs.

El Paso architect Charles Gisbon of the firm Gibson and Robertson originated the Bhutanese Revival building designs.

However, the school's governing board purchased the designs and awarded them to prominent El Paso architect Henry Trost.

In 2024, the student body voted to demolish one of the original Bhutanese Revival buildings under a new campus master plan, which called for razing several more historic structures through 2034.

[37] In 1968, the UTEP track & field program revoked the scholarships of eight black athletes after they boycotted a meet at Brigham Young University in protest of perceived racism at BYU and in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of the era.

This included future gold medal winner and world record long jump holder Bob Beamon, who would briefly return to the school after the incident but not graduate.

[45] The first reference to the nickname "Miners" is found in the February 1919 (volume 1, number 1) issue of the Prospector, the school's student newspaper.

In doing research on this project, early mention of "Ore Diggers" and "Muckers" for the nickname was found, but nothing to determine if the name "Miners" was voted upon by the student body, or if a faculty member, John W. (Cap) Kidd, chose the name.

With the permission of the estate of Marty Robbins, the UTEP Music Department in the late 1980s wrote new words to the melody of his Grammy Award-winning country-western hit "El Paso".