Santa Rosalía

History

Francisco de Ulloa sailed these shores in 1539, and Jesuits explored the region in the early 1700s, founding the mission of Santa Rosalía de Mulegé some distance to the south. The site of the present town stayed empty until the late 1860s, when a greenish rock shipped to Guaymas turned out to be very pure copper ore. A first company worked the surface deposits from 1873 and went broke in 1879.

In 1885 Porfirio Díaz granted a concession to the French Compagnie du Boleo, which bought out the earlier venture and built a company town. By 1890 it had a 38 km ore railway. The company put up houses, schools and churches in the French style of the day, brought in electricity early to run water pumps, and installed 43 telephones in 1900. Its wooden offices date from 1897. The place was first called Cachanía, after a local desert plant, and many residents still use that name.

The French closed the mine in 1954 and many people left. A company backed by the Mexican government reopened the works, but mining stopped again decades later. In 1986 the old town was declared a zone of historic monuments covering 32 buildings, and in 2023 Santa Rosalía became a Pueblo Mágico.