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There is an enchanting Mexican colonial town in southern Sonora that I visited 27 years ago with my young children. I remember a young woman selling beautiful embroidered local sights framed in bright colors. I bought a small, framed scene of a church with people flying kites in a colonial town. I have longed to return to explore the amazingly restored colonial heart of Álamos, Sonora. She was once the richest silver mining area in New Spain. It has been called “La Ciudad de los Portales” due to its multitude of colonial buildings with arched porticos.
Three burbling streams meet beneath towering cottonwoods on their way to the Cuchujaqui River, Indigenous peoples often gathered in this lush location. Álamos was settled here where the Sonoran Desert with its scant rainfall of 7 – 9 inches per year meets the Sinaloa Rainforest with over 30 inches of rain. There are two distinct seasons. The locals tell me about the dry Sonoran-desert time for most of the year and the rainy, wet Sinaloa one in late summer and early fall. El Pueblo de Álamos stands in a place that the local Indigenous people have habituated for millennia. The stately Cottonwoods lining the stream beds lend their Spanish namesake of “Álamos” to the colonial Spanish settlement established in 1683.
When we do return in the spring of 2025, it still looks and feels like a Spanish colonial town caught in time. The old church built of hand-hewn stones, the intricate metal work of the gazebo in the square, local people greeting you with a “buenos días” as you pass and I really can’t believe it but also there is Alicia, the embroidery lady, working on her next colorful creation. I am so excited to see her and to buy a lovely rendering of a barrel cactus, my friend buys one of two sweet donkeys with flowers. She also creates pillows depicting a wedding celebration or “La Boda”. It is a delight to see her still hand sewing her intricate and picturesque local scenes.
I want to take a ride on one of the local sightseeing tours. I choose the red train sitting with Mexican families with children over one of the double-decker buses. As we bump slowly along over the cobblestone streets the conductor shares history, local lore and highlights of the town. One of the many expansive arched porticos we pass by is the Hacienda de Los Santos Resort and Spa. This five-star property recreates a large colonial estate on 6 acres with world class dining and accommodations. It was meticulously restored over 24 years from 4 private homes and the old sugar mill. Next the red engine turns up a slight incline to take us past the brightly-tangerine painted home of Maria Felix, a beloved Mexican singer and actress during the 1940s and 1950s. Her birth place now a popular museum. As the little train chugs along we wind past stately haciendas draped in the vibrant hues of bougainvillea, colorful talavera pots bursting with the flowers of the exotic desert rose and so many more colorful tropical plants.
When you start to explore local history, it is no wonder that Álamos is such a haven for people that enjoy 16th and 17th century colonial architecture, metal work, furnishings and the experience of old Mexico. This sleepy little town has a rich and storied past studded with silver, subjugation of the local indigenous peoples in the mines, uprisings of locals against the Spanish, the Mexican revolution, massive floods from hurricanes and several plagues. The population of the town swelled in the boom times to as many as 15,000 inhabitants and fell to as few as 2,000 with conflicts, natural disasters and disease. Álamos has gone from a rich silver Capital to a conquered, forgotten, looted site several times over the last 300 years. That is part of what is so fascinating to me about this place. A true phoenix of resurrection and rebuilding yet retaining all of the classic charm of colonial Mexico.
Locals tell of a legend that the discovery of silver involved a miracle that appeared to some local Indians from a nearby mission. They were out in the hills looking for game when a slender woman, gowned in white with a blue mantle stood high in the arms of a cardon cactus, (think saguaro, only larger). The men started piling up stones at the base of the cactus to rescue the lady, only to have her disappear. A great vein of silver was revealed where the men had cleared the stones. Spanish land grants record that one of the original veins was over 30 meters wide. At the height of the mining activity in 1700 it is reported that over 4,000 Indigenous Indians were laboring deep beneath the earth in the mines.
Father Francisco Eusebio Kino arrived here in 1687, establishing the trail of missions along with the discovery of silver, brought the Spanish Military and colonists. Over the centuries there were numerous uprisings by the local Indigenous people. It is estimated that the Mayos and Yaquis during the mission time suffered massive die offs of over 90% of their pre-colonization populations from the introduction of European diseases, including smallpox, as well as the Spanish edict taking a percentage of young men from each village to work in the mines. At times the Sonora Apaches came from the north and the Seris came from the west to raid the mines and rich colonial settlements. In 1687 Father Kino wrote that he and General Teránalong with miners and merchants had begun the construction of the church that was the first to grace this site. The stately Iglesia de la Purísima Concepción that stands today being the most recent in a line of reconstruction of the church over the centuries.
Fortunes of the town rose and fell over the years with the silver playing out and the closing of the mines, revolutions, uprisings and plagues, Álamos became a virtual ghost town by 1940. Most of the great adobe haciendas, many a full city block square with enormous central gardens and covered arched courtyards, were abandoned and had fallen into disrepair. The beams of the flat roofs made from the local long-lived hardwood amapa tree had rotted out. Rain forest trees and plants grew from roofs and foundations, many of the haciendas looted of their colonial treasures. In the 1950’s word of the abandoned colonial town made its way north. Artists, movie stars, writers, and adventure seekers began to reclaim the enchantment of this magic town with historical restorations of many of the period buildings. The haciendas here in Álamos strike me as grand old ladies, they even have names that have survived the centuries. Casa Pacífica, Hacienda la Colorado, el Palacio and Casa de los Tesoros, are all stunning examples of 17th Century opulence.
On our return visit in January 2025 the town was alive with thousands of visitors from around Mexico for the Festival Alfonso Ortiz Tirado (FAOT) music festival. The annual festival features over 700 artists and bands from Mariachis to Opera. The town was newly decked out in hundreds of colorful streamers, flags and rainbow-colored umbrellas. One evening we joined throngs of happy music listeners and dancers to watch a stunning performance of traditional Mexican music by mariachi Castro de Los Mochis. It seemed everyone in the audience, including our enthusiastic hosts, knew the words of every song. The festival entails a whole week of events featuring Mexican artists from far and wide. The double-decker buses and the little red train are working overtime packed with visitors. We even met several people that had traveled down by bus from Puerto Peñasco for the festivities.
Back again for a visit in March, the town has returned to its sleepy splendor with a vibrant community of American and Canadian expats. Our trip included tours of several restored haciendas and stunning gardens as well as enjoying local food and concerts. I am still astounded by the magnificence of the interiors of the haciendas with all of their indoor/outdoor arch covered patios crowded with period antiques and stunning art as well as gardens overflowing with flowering tropical plant after flowering tropical plant. Creating an amazing dinner of Paul’s butter chicken for his guests, executive chef Joseph Biggert beamed as the Juan Carlos Parra Groove Band accompanied local crooner Nonnie Thompson in a fabulous night of rhythm and blues. The tables set in the golden dining room illuminated with dozens of punched tin Mexican star chandeliers were crowded with locals and visitors alike enjoying the food, music and ambiance uniting people from up and down the Americas.
There is so much more to explore in “La Ciudad de los Portales”, from the Callejón del Beso or sweethearts alley, to the Plaza de Armas, the cemetery, the Museo Costumbrista de Sonora, El Mirador on the hill of El Perico, where you have a spectacular view of Alamos, some of the best birdwatching in Mexico at the nature preserve trails of Sierra de Álamos Eco Reserve Parque La Colorada, to visiting Indigenous villages, to enjoying amazing street food including crab tacos along the Alameda under the towering trees that shade the market street and sipping on local Bacanora and Mescal. You can arrange a historic house and garden tour at Kathy’s Korner bookshop. This crown jewel of Mexico, Álamos offers magic and delight to all her visitors. And be sure to look for Alicia the embroidery lady.
