Cañitas de Felipe Pescador

For decades the only way into this corner of the Zacatecas semi-desert was by train. This is where the Mexico City to Ciudad Juárez line threw off its branch to Durango, and the station's first name was Empalme Cañitas, Cañitas Junction. The dry climate had kept settlers away until land reform around 1918 brought new families, and in 1921 Governor Donato Moreno expropriated land from the Guadalupe and La Salada haciendas to lay out the town.

The junction brought repair shops, offices and railwaymen's homes, most of them while Felipe Pescador ran Mexico's national railways. The town took his name on 19 November 1958, the same day it split from Fresnillo to head a municipality of its own.

The blow came between 1992 and 1996, when the trains stopped being the area's employer and its transport. Cañitas was made a city in 1994, yet many residents have since left for the United States. About 6,400 people live here today at 2,020 metres, on farming, livestock and trade, with irrigated fields at nearby ranches such as La Quemada and Boquilla de Abajo.

The railway era survives in the roundhouse (Casa Redonda) beside the station. The patron feast for the Virgen de San Juan began in 1946 and grew into a regional fair. Locals hold that the matachines dance was born here, and tamborazo bands still play at dances and serenades. Food means red mole, barbacoa, frijoles charros, tamales and milk sweets; local crafts are tule-seat chairs and wrought-iron balcony work.