Mineral del Monte

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Mineral del Monte (also Real del Monte) is a city and municipality in Hidalgo state in central Mexico, lying at an altitude of 2700 metres (8,800 ft).

[edit] History

The municipality was once the richest in the state when gold and silver were discovered before the Spanish Conquest. The Spanish began mining in the late 1500s. The mines were later abandoned but reopened in the late 1730s under Pedro Romero de Terreros.

The town's steep streets, stairways and small squares are lined with low buildings, some dating back to colonial times. The houses with high sloping roofs and chimneys indicate a Cornish influence, the legacy left by 350 Cornishmen employed by the Cornish firm that ran the mines between 1824 and 1848. The Cornish role in the development of Mexican silver mining is remembered fondly in Real del Monte-Pachuca, as it was the Cornish who introduced the industrial revolution to the shores of Latin America in the 1820s, reviving Mexican silver mining. More particularly the majority of migrants to this region of Mexico came from what we now term the Cornish Central Mining District: Camborne-Redruth-Gwennap. One of the leading personalities in nineteenth century Mexico was Camborne man, Francis Rule. His opinion was regarded as a barometer for the rise and fall of mining shares and he became a multi-millionaire with numerous mining interests in and around Pachuca, including the famous Santa Gertrudis which by 1898 was one of the most powerful mines in the State of Hidalgo. The Management was all Cornish, with Thomas Lakeside Phillips becoming Director. In 1903 alone, profits to stockholders had exceeded a million dollars. Known as El Rey de la Plata (The Silver King), Rule left an indelible mark on the Pachucan cityscape and showed great generosity to the peoples of his adopted homeland.

Today, typical Cornish pasties (a local speciality known as pastes) are baked in both settlements and are unknown outside the State of Hidalgo. Four extant Cornish engine houses and a cemetery containing the graves of hundreds of Cornish bear witness to the Cornish involvement in Mexican silver mining for over a century. It was the Cornish who first introduced soccer to Mexico (Pachuca), and Mexican remittances helped to build the Wesleyan Chapel in Redruth, Cornwall in the 1820s.

[edit] Tourism

The twin silver mining settlements of Pachuca and Real del Monte (Mineral del Monte) in the State of Hidalgo are being marketed as 'Mexico's Little Cornwall' by the Mexican Embassy in London in 2007 and represent the first attempt by the Spanish speaking part of the Cornish diaspora to establish formal links with Cornwall. Camborne and Redruth town councils in Cornwall have recently said no to twinning agreements with Real del Monte, due to 'present conditions and financial constraints', despite numerous approaches by the Mexican Embassy and a declaration of intent that was signed at Penventon Hotel, Redruth, in 2001 by members of both Redruth and Camborne Town Councils.