Cananea

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Highway sign pointing to Cananea.

Cananea (from the Apache term for "horse meat") is a city in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the seat of the municipality of the same name. The population of the town was 30,515 as recorded by the 2000 census. The population of the municipality, which includes rural areas, was 32,061. The total area of the municipality is 4,141.1 square kilometers.

This is the location where the company The Cananea Consolidated Copper Company was founded in 1899 and was the protagonist the Cananea Strike of 1906 that resulted in the death of 23 people in a fight between the strikers and a posse led by Arizona Rangers. A corrido titled La cárcel de Cananea ("Cananea jail") written in 1917 has become famous in Mexico. At the time of the strike the population of 23,000 included 7,000 Americans and 5,000 Chinese. ^[1]

1 History
2 Cananea jail
3 Climate
4 Economy
5 Recent Events
6 Twin Towns
7 Sources
8 References
9 External links

[edit] History

The first non-native inhabitants of the land where Cananea is now located arrived in 1760. Jesuit priests discovered and extracted gold and silver mines.

General Ignacio Pesqueira, native of nearby Arizpe, retired to this area. He continually fought Apache Indians who attacked the area, and once while chasing them in the mountains he discovered the abandoned mines and by 1868 he had renewed the extraction of minerals in the Cananea mines.

Cananea Mesa Sur Mountain, generally used to mine minerals

General Pesqueira's wife, Elena Pesqueira Pesqueira, discovered a nearby sierra and the General named the highest peak La Elenita ("The Little Elena", 2843 meters above sea level) in her honor. The other peak is named La Mariquita ("The Little Mary", 2476 meters above sea level). In 1889 William Cornell Greene purchased the mine from General Pesqueira and founded the Nogales, Sonora-based company "The Cananea Consolidated Copper Company, S. A. (CCCC or 4C).

On October 31, 1901 the area became a municipality with Cananea town as its seat. On July 11, 1957 Cananea town became a city.

[edit] Cananea jail

The Cananea jail was built in 1903 and is located in downtown Cananea. It was the first public jail of the city and is currently a museum ("Museo de la Lucha Obrera") with exhibitions of photographs and instruments used in mining.

The Cananea Jail song is a corrido that has become part of the culture of Cananea and the state of Sonora. It describes the experiences a man accused of murdering Chinese immigrants went through while at this jail. According to historian Rodolfo Rascón, a man called Francisco, nicknamed "El Cucharón de Batuc" ("The Big Spoon of Batuc") wrote the song in 1917.

[edit] Climate

The municipality of Cananea has a semi-hot subhumid climate, with an average monthly maximum temperature of 23.5°C in the months of June to September and an average monthly minimum of 7.4°C in December and January; the average annual temperature is 15.3°C.

The rainy season is in summer in the months of July to September, with an average annual rainfall of 545 millimeters. In the months of February, March, and April there are frequent frosts, hailstorms, and occasional snowstorms. In winter the rains are of less intensity, but of longer duration. Called “equipatas” they can fall in the form of snow.

[edit] Economy

Mining is and will be the main source of revenue for Cananea for the foreseeable future. 80% of the population is directly and/or indirectly supported by mining companies in Cananea. The first and most important mining company is Mexicana de Cananea, S.A. de C.V. owned by Southern Copper Corporation.(NYSE:PCU) and still shares some stock with Grupo Mexico, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: GMEXICO). The Mining Operations Director assigned to Cananea is Isaac López Arzola. The miner's National Union of Mining and Metallurgical Workers Sindicate, Section No.65 (Labor Union), have as their General Secretary since 2001, Napoleon Gómez Urrutia [1]. Cananea produced 163,804 tons of copper in 2006. It is among the world's largest copper mines in terms of reserves. ^[2] The company plans to invest $1.14 billion over the next five years in a major expansion to more than double Cananea's production capacity. The Cananea mine has a long history of labor problems, the most recent being a strike threat in June 2007. ^[3]

The second and smaller active mine is "Minera Maria", owned by Empresas Frisco and Teck Cominco, and located west of Cananea. The Maria mine also produces copper.

Industry is the second most important activity in the local economy, generating around 3,100 jobs. There is a modest industrial park situated north of the town with an area of 21.5 hectares. There are several companies operating as maquiladoras. The most important are Stewart Connector Systems de México, S. A., Fundidora de Cananea, S. A., Muebles Marc de México, S. A., and Road Machinery Company de México S. A., which together provide 1,100 jobs and are involved in diverse activities, from assembling cables to production of steel for use in industry.

Cattle raising is important and there were approximately 16,000 head in the last census.

Farming: the main crops are: corn, potatoes, beans, sorghum, alfalfa, barley, and apples. Most of the production of these crops is used for self-consumption and for the feeding of cattle. The irrigation infrastructure consists of 30 wells, equipped with a system of electrical motors; and reinforced canals with a length of 10 kilometers used for irrigation.

[edit] Recent Events

On May 16, 2007 a convoy of armed assailants entered the limits of Cananea and began an assault, killing five police officers and two civilians. The assailants then fled into the surrounding hills and mountains of the Sierra Madre, commandeering horses and kidnapping ranchhands to serve as guides. Police and army troops pursued the assailants for sometime, eventually killing 16. The total deaths from this incident rested at 23, with many wounded. The Cananean Police Department is being investigated for possible connections to one of several powerful Mexican drug cartels. ^[4]