La Noria de San Pantaleón

La Noria de San Pantaleón is a mining village in a narrow canyon west of Sombrerete, today almost empty, whose old church is one of the sites of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the colonial royal road from Mexico City to New Mexico that UNESCO listed as World Heritage in 2010. It sits next to San Martín, where mining began in the 1550s.

The mines of San Martín produced lead, and that mattered far beyond the canyon: lead was essential for smelting silver, so the district supplied refineries across the region's mining towns. A first church was built at San Martín in 1585, and the name San Pantaleón was adopted in 1726. As the mines declined, most people left, and the village is now often described as a ghost town.

The Temple of San Pantaleón Mártir has a single nave braced by thick buttresses. Its doorway is a round arch between two pilasters carved with the geometric and floral patterns of the early 18th century, and the tower holds two bells under an iron cross. Inside, the walls keep painted borders of crosses and plant motifs, and the main altar is neoclassical. The empty houses around it make the canyon an evocative place to walk and take photos.