Matías Romero

Matías Romero was born of the railway. The place was called Rincón Antonio and belonged to Santa María Petapa; the Rincón Antonio station opened on 15 October 1894 on the Ferrocarril Nacional de Tehuantepec, the trans-isthmian line between Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz promoted under Porfirio Díaz. The town was founded on 8 November 1906 and named for the Oaxacan politician Matías Romero Avendaño, and it became a city on 3 June 1950. It grew mainly on railway workers who came from elsewhere, and the workers' union built a theatre, a hospital and a sports complex.

That history is still visible in the centre. The red-brick former station, with a metal frame from the Carnegie foundries, housed the general offices, the traffic superintendent's office and a restaurant, with guest rooms in the attic. A few English-style houses from the railway era also survive. The station has been renovated and belongs to Line Z of the Interoceanic Train, between Chivela and Mogoñé. There are also two railway galleries, the "Erasmo Gómez Villalobos" and the "E. Castillo Vivar", and the Parroquia de San Matías.

The economy depended almost entirely on the railway until activity fell sharply from the 1980s; today it rests on commerce, farming (maize, beans, tropical fruit), cattle and tropical timber. The climate is warm and humid, with about 2,000 to 2,250 mm of rain a year, mostly in summer, and strong northerly winds in winter.

The Feria de San Matías is held in February, with the main day on the 24th, and there are fiestas for San Pedro and San Pablo (28 June), Santa Ana (26 July) and the Virgen de Guadalupe (12 December). For anyone crossing the Isthmus it is a stop of historical interest rather than a postcard town.