Mapimí

History

The desert around Mapimí was home to nomadic Toboso and Cocoyome groups, and the name comes from a Cocoyome word for a high hill. The Jesuit Juan Agustín de Espinoza and captain Antón Martín Zapata came from Cuencamé looking for precious metals, found them in the Sierra de la India, and founded Santiago de Mapimí on July 25, 1598. A mining camp, La Ojuela, soon rose high on the sierra. Indigenous uprisings destroyed the town several times in the 17th and early 18th centuries, until a presidio was built to secure the area.

In 1811 royalist troops passed through with Miguel Hidalgo and other insurgent leaders as prisoners on the way to Chihuahua, and Hidalgo was lodged in town. Benito Juárez and his cabinet stopped here in 1864 during their retreat north; the house where they met is now a museum. Mining prosperity continued through the 19th century and drew people of many nationalities. Between 1898 and 1900 the Ojuela suspension bridge, designed by Wilhelm Hildenbrand with cable from John A. Roebling's Sons of New Jersey, was built to link La Ojuela with the Santa Rita mine.

In 1928 underground water flooded most levels of the Santa Rita mine and ended production. People left, and La Ojuela became a ghost town. Irrigation projects begun in 1938 later helped farming in the region. Mapimí was included in the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro World Heritage listing in 2010 and was named a Pueblo Mágico in 2012.