Cárdenas

Cárdenas is known as the railway city, and nearly everything it became it owes to the tracks. It sits 1,200 metres up in the Zona Media of San Luis Potosí, and has about 15,300 people.

A hacienda came first. In 1613 the Marquis of Guadalcázar granted Luis de Cárdenas the Ciénega de San Nicolás, an estate that ended up named after its owner's family. Most of its people were Pames, scattered across small settlements and served by friars from the Alaquines mission.

Work on the San Luis Potosí–Tampico railway began in 1881: climbing from Tamasopo to the plateau meant boring tunnels through the mountains, and the two ends finally met at La Labor, beside the town, in April 1890. The Cárdenas Division workshops followed, the Rasconcito and Colonia Americana neighbourhoods went up, and families from Alaquines and Rayón moved in to trade. During the Revolution the Cedillo brothers' forces made the town their base, and on May 27, 1917 they overran the garrison and set railway installations on fire. Cárdenas became a municipality of its own, split from Alaquines, in 1920, and in 1923 Aurelio Manrique declared it the provisional state capital, never recognised federally. The last steam engine left the workshop in 1957, and today only freight trains pass.

El Picacho, a hill of about 1,300 metres, is the town's emblem and looks over all of it. The big feast honours San Nicolás Tolentino in September, and a spring fair runs in May. Try pemoles, barbacoa and biznaga candy.