Alamos

By Allen Cox

According to local legend, the city of Álamos was once so prosperous due to the silver mines that the daughter of a wealthy silver baron, on her wedding day, walked from her home to the church on a path made of silver bars.

In the mountains of the northern state of Sonora, the moguls of Mexico’s silver industry left behind a legacy that they called Álamos. In the 18th century, its mines produced more silver than any other Spanish colonial mining project. Up sprang a graceful pueblo, with its central church, its commerce, and its mansions as fine as silver fortunes could buy. Soon, Álamos blossomed into a provincial oasis of high society tucked in the wilds of the Sierra Madre. It became the northernmost jewel in a necklace of “Silver Cities” that spread throughout Mexico’s interior.

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