El Paso City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to rename a stretch of Bob Mitchell Drive as Fred Loya Drive, honoring the late founder of Fred Loya Insurance who died earlier this year. The affected segment runs between Montwood Drive and Paseo del Rey Drive in East El Paso, and the change does not alter any property addresses along the road.
A Unanimous Vote Months in the Making
The decision, confirmed by KVIA, caps off a process that began weeks earlier. The El Paso City Plan Commission had already unanimously approved the renaming request on Oct. 22, sending it to the full council for final action. Fred Loya Sr., the owner and founder of Fred Loya Insurance, died in February, and the street change arrives months after his death.
City officials noted the renaming comes with no practical disruption for residents or businesses along the corridor, since the station's report confirms no addresses are affected by the switch. That detail appeared to ease at least some of the logistical concerns that can accompany a street-naming change in a long-established neighborhood.
A Question About the Old Name
Not every question was settled quietly, though. District 8 Representative Chris Canales raised concerns during the discussion about whether Bob Mitchell's family had been notified of the renaming, according to the same account. Per that report, notifying a namesake's family is not part of the city's protocol for these changes, and KVIA said it had not independently verified who Bob Mitchell was in the first place — leaving the original honoree's identity an open question even as his name comes off the street sign.
Friends Recall Loya's Ties to the Neighborhood
Fred Loya's friends and family thanked the council for the renaming, the report notes, and one friend said the street sits in the very neighborhood where Loya lived and built decades of community memories. That personal connection runs alongside Loya's wider reputation in El Paso, where he became known for his elaborate home Christmas light display — though accounts of its scale vary widely depending on the source.
The seed report describing Tuesday's vote put the display at more than 80,000 lights. Other outlets have offered far higher counts: the El Paso Times reported the annual display featured more than 450,000 lights synchronized to holiday, classical and pop music, while KISS El Paso described it as featuring nearly 800,000 lights. The discrepancies remain unreconciled across coverage, but all versions point to the same conclusion: this was no modest front-yard display.
A Tradition Dating Back to 2006
Since 2006, the Fred Loya Christmas Light Show became a holiday rite of passage on the East Side, according to KISS El Paso. The show spent two years at Ascarate Park before returning to the Loya home in 2024, a move KVIA covered at the time, and organizers said roughly 35 people were expected to help build the display starting that October.
That 2024 return wasn't without friction for neighbors. KFOX-TV reported that the light show, then marking its 19th year at the Fred Loya house, drew mixed reactions, with one nearby resident saying, “Sometimes the traffic has gotten so bad that we have to take an alternative route to get into the neighborhood.” Project manager Scott Brown told the station organizers expected around 3,000 visitors per night on weekends. District 6 Representative Art Fierro has said more than 60,000 people visit the neighborhood each season to see the lights at the Fred Loya house, underscoring just how large a draw the display has become for the surrounding streets — including the one that now bears his name.
