Villa González Ortega

Until 1922 this town in southeastern Zacatecas was called El Carro, after the cattle hacienda whose lands it grew on. It sits on the high plateau, 2,000 to 2,400 metres up, on a dry plain with no permanent rivers, broken by low hills and mesas, where farmers grow corn, beans, grapes and alfalfa.

The land was first granted to Diego de Ibarra, one of the Spaniards who found the silver of Zacatecas. The estate belonged to the vast Ciénaga de Mata holdings, and in 1818 it passed to Colonel Juan Nepomuceno de Moncada y Berrio, Count of San Mateo de Valparaíso and Marquess of Jaral de Berrio. His will paid for the Church of Santa Teresa, also called Our Lady of Sorrows, built in pink stone between 1850 and 1855. Two towers rise to octagonal belfries and a tall dome lights the nave. The church stands raised above the street because a crypt beneath it holds members of the Moncada family. Since 2010 it has been one of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro sites on the World Heritage list.

The hacienda's main house is now the town hall, with vaulted galleries and a tower probably built in the 19th century against Comanche raids. A municipality since 1890, El Carro prospered most under Porfirio Díaz; when the hacienda was broken up after the Revolution, the municipality lost half its people. The town was renamed for Jesús González Ortega, who led the Liberal armies in the Reform War and governed Zacatecas. About 6,600 people live in the town today.