Ex-Hacienda del Copal

The village of El Copal grew up at the foot of the San José del Copal hacienda, one of the largest around Irapuato. It began as a land grant from Viceroy Villamanrique to Alonso de Santiago on a 13 May, in 1588 according to most accounts (a few print 1558). The name comes from the copal trees that grew here, and San José is patron of both the estate and its chapel.

For centuries it raised maize, beans, wheat, barley, chickpeas and lentils, plus cattle and smaller livestock. It passed from Alonso de Santiago to Diego Juárez de Alejandri, to José López Gutiérrez in 1691 and to Ignacio de Lanuza in 1741. In the 19th century it covered about 14,596 hectares. An insurgent attack in 1814 left it nearly empty. By 1895, with the estate split among the heirs of Florentina Echeverría, 762 people lived in the main house compound and the herd numbered 2,514 head of cattle.

Land reform left only the big house and a little land. Since 1975 the casco and 160 hectares belong to the Universidad de Guanajuato, which uses it for offices and teaching and opens exhibitions to the public. The facade has nine pink-stone arches, beside a stone wall over a hundred metres long that closed off the orchard; to the north stands the chapel with its bell tower. Inside are a grain loft, an Andalusian-style patio, a back courtyard and one of the three animal-powered mills the estate once had. The community, 1,420 people in 2020, sits beside the compound.