Tour of Chihuahua City Friday, April 20 th 2007

On Friday, April 20, 2007 the institutions that presented at the Second General Partners Conference were invited to go on a tour of the city of Chihuahua via a trolley style bus. The tour included a brief history of the city, the Federal palace, Pancho Villa’s House, and information about the statues and monuments of the city.

Chihuahua City was founded on October 12th, 1709 by Antonio Deza y Ulloa of Spain. Its original name was Real de San Francisco de Cuellar. In 1824, it was given the name of Chihuahua, a Nahualt word which means "dry sandy zone" or "place where sacks are made" (tourbymexico.com).

The interior of the Chihuahua Federal Palace contains murals that portray the history of the city, they were painted by Aaron Piña Mora.

The federal palace was originally a college for the Jesuit order, it was there where Miguel Hidalgo Y Costilla was tried and executed on June 30 of 1811.

The college was then converted into a branch mint in which Chihuahua made her own money.

This mint was demolished in 1908 and the new federal palace was inaugurated in 1910.

Our tour continued with a visit to La Quinta Luz Museum which is also known as Pancho Villa’s House.
It was founded by Luz Corral, Villa’s widow who lived there after his assassination in 1923. Their only child died at the age of two.

The house still has original and very ornate floor tile and ceiling moldings. It is now a museum that displays items that are typical of the time the house was built and the vehicle in which Pancho Villa was ambushed and assassinated.

All furniture in the museum has been collected for educational purposes. We were also given information about the baroque-style Cathedral which was built in the sixteenth century out of pink quarry stone.

The rest of the tour included drive-by sights of the city statues and many interesting bits of information about the culturally rich and lively City of Chihuahua. The tour was approximately one hour long.