Hacienda de Canutillo

If you come to Parral for Pancho Villa's story, Canutillo is where it ends. This old hacienda lies just south of the Chihuahua state line in the municipality of Ocampo, Durango. It began in the 1600s as a farming estate that fed the mines of Parral, and for travelers on the Camino Real it was a place to stop on the way north.

In 1920, after Villa laid down his arms under an agreement with the government of Adolfo de la Huerta, he was given Canutillo as his retirement estate. He and his former soldiers rebuilt the ruined buildings, farmed the land, and opened a school for local children. Villa lived there for three years, until he was ambushed and killed in Parral in July 1923.

After his death the hacienda was abandoned and looted, and its lands were divided. In 1978 the main house became a regional museum, now under INAH, with photographs, documents and objects from Villa's years there. The thick-walled building and its open courtyard, surrounded by dry ranch country, give a strong sense of how isolated and defensible the place was.