Cosihuiriachi

Cosihuiriachi rises in the mountainous Chihuahua country of northern Mexico, a setting of upland woods and cool, wet conditions within the wider region’s varied climates. The town gave its name to the surrounding district and long served as its seat of government.

Nearby slopes once offered both a route through the high country and access to the mineral ground that first attracted sustained exploitation. The name Cosihuiriachi, also written Cusihuiriachi, comes from Tarahumara and means “erect pole.” Local silver mines tied the town’s fortunes to underground wealth.

The town traces its origin to 1687, when Antonio Rodríguez reported veins of silver that he named San Bernabé. The wealth of the mines drew so many people that within a year the Spanish government made the place an alcaldía mayor, on 13 January 1688, under the name Santa Rosa de Cusihuiriachi. It became the political centre of a wide area of the Sierra Madre Occidental, the later Alta Tarahumara, and remained a major Chihuahua town after independence, when the first state constitution of 1826 made it the seat of one of the state's partidos.