Antigua Fábrica de Metepec

Metepec, a few kilometers northwest of Atlixco, is one of the great monuments of Mexico's early industrial age. In 1899 the industrialist Luis Barroso Arias founded the Compañía Industrial de Atlixco with Mexican and foreign capital and built a textile mill on the old hacienda of San Diego Metepec. It started running in 1902 and became one of the largest cotton mills in the country, with more than 1,500 workers on a single shift and cloth good enough to be promoted for export.

Around the mill the company built a whole workers' town, with about a thousand small houses, most of them a single room, laid out in rows, along with a church and services. Workers came from all over Puebla, Tlaxcala and Mexico City, and their struggles are a key chapter in the labor history of the Atlixco valley.

The mill closed decades ago, and its brick buildings, tall chimney and grounds now house the Centro Vacacional IMSS Metepec, a holiday resort run by the Mexican Social Security Institute, with pools, gardens, lodging and sports areas, all with the volcano behind. The workers' houses and the church can still be seen in the village around it.