Tapalpa

History

The name comes from the Nahuatl tlapalpan, 'land of colors'. Otomí people lived in the region before the Spanish, who arrived in 1523 under Alonso de Ávalos Saavedra and met a local group called the Atlacco, who did not resist. Franciscan friars began evangelizing in 1531, and in 1650 the Franciscans built the Temple of San Antonio, known for its large vaulted ceiling. A local legend says bandits who tried to rob it were stopped by a mysterious man in black, said to be Saint Anthony himself.

By 1825 Tapalpa was registered as a villa, and in 1869 it became the seat of its own municipality. A paper factory opened here in 1840, described as the first in Latin America. It closed in 1923 in the aftermath of the Revolution, and its ruins are now a visitor attraction.

When the old San Antonio temple became too damaged, townspeople paid for a new church of red brick, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, begun in 1950. Tapalpa was among the first places named a Pueblo Mágico, in 2002.