Cosalá

History

Cosalá began as a Spanish mining camp, founded under the name Real de Minas de las Once Mil Vírgenes de Cosalá. The meaning of the older Indigenous name is debated. Sinaloan historians have read it as "place of beautiful surroundings" or as a reference to bright, emerald-colored water.

Silver made the town one of the most influential in the region, and for a long time it carried real weight in the social and political life of Sinaloa. In 1826 Francisco Iriarte, governor of the Estado de Occidente, which then joined Sinaloa and Sonora, moved the state capital to Cosalá because the previous capital, El Fuerte, was under threat during the Yaqui uprising led by Juan Banderas. Iriarte also brought the printing press to the region, and Sinaloa's first newspaper, El Espectador Imparcial, was published here.

As mining declined, Cosalá was left with its colonial streets largely intact. That preserved townscape, along with the surrounding waterfalls and canyons, earned it a place among the Pueblos Mágicos in 2005, the first in Sinaloa.