San Ignacio

San Ignacio is a small village and comisaría of Progreso municipality that grew up around a henequen hacienda. It lies just west of the Mérida–Progreso highway at kilometre 16, about halfway between the two, on flat land only a few metres above sea level. The village takes its name from Saint Ignatius of Loyola. It had 431 people in 1900, shrank to under 200 by 1940, and has since grown back; the 2020 census counted 887.

The hacienda flourished in the henequen boom, when it belonged to Alonso Regil Peón and paid its workers in its own tokens, or fichas, which collectors now look for. In 1937 President Lázaro Cárdenas came here during the land reform that turned the haciendas' fields into ejidos; the local account is that the peons were at first afraid to take the land, and Cárdenas gave them 24 hours to take possession. The ejido house that stands today was opened in 1960. In 1976 the old henequen machine house and the church were used as locations for the Mexican film Casta Divina.

What remains of the hacienda is partly ruined and has been undergoing restoration: the church, a red building in neo-Gothic style with a pointed bell tower, the arcaded main house, and the long roofless walls of the machine house. Local lore says there are passages under the main house, and perhaps punishment cells, but this is unconfirmed. Around the village are aguadas, ponds left where soil was dug out for building. Since 1990 the grounds have also hosted the Villa Scout San Ignacio, a scouting training and camping centre, and the surroundings were reforested from 2014. The village keeps its patron saint's feast on 31 July.