Mier

History

The name comes from Francisco Mier y Torre, governor of Nuevo León from 1710 to 1714, who used to spend the night at this spot on his journeys to Texas. The place became known as Estancia de Mier. The town itself was founded on March 6, 1753, by José de Escandón, the colonizer of Nuevo Santander, under the name Villa del Paso del Cántaro. Its first settlers were nineteen families, nine from nearby Camargo and ten from Cerralvo, and more families from Nuevo León joined from 1757. They built houses of mud and stone and lived from ranching, selling wool and hides to buy maize. An indigenous group known as the Garzas lived alongside them.

In the 19th century steamboats coming up the Rio Grande stopped at Mier. In late December 1842 a force of Texan raiders under William S. Fisher crossed the river and occupied the town; after a hard day-long fight they surrendered to Mexican troops. The episode is remembered in the town's Museum of the Battle of 1842.

Mier was declared a city in 1871. It lost its border customs house in 1934, and in 1950 half of its territory was split off to create the neighboring municipality of Miguel Alemán. It was named a Pueblo Mágico on December 5, 2007, and the state congress declared it a Heroic City in 2016.