Virtually cut off from the world until Highway 45 was completed, Hidalgo del Parral has remained an isolated, primitive town. Until the arrival of the highway, the town had few visitors other than miners. (Most travelers still tend to use Highway 49 to Fresnillo via Gomez Palacio, rather than Highway 45.) Rich metallic ores were first discovered around here in the middle of the 16th century and the mines are still producing.
The townsite is hilly; streets are narrow and steep, and most of them are one way. Mule drawn wagons are a familiar sight.
Six churches are scattered throughout the town all of them with bullet holes in their stone walls. A large 18th century church on the plaza, La Parroquia, is worth a visit to examine the richly embellished interior and gilded altar screens.
The general store at one end of Plaza San Juan de Dios was formerly the house in which Pancho Villa lived before his assassination. His grave holds a headless corpse, a morbid reminder of a grave robbery several years after his burial. Villa's widow has tried, without success, to remove his body to an impressive, ornate crypt in Chihuahua.
The Palace of Pedro Alvarado, near the Plaza San Juan de Dios, is an elegant mansion built and lived in by a lucky 19th century miner who struck it rich in the silver mines.
The Municipal Palace (Palacio Municipal) is known for the rather bizarre clock tower that surmounts the north corner of the building.
Virtually cut off from the world until Highway 45 was completed, Hidalgo del Parral has remained an isolated, primitive town. Until the arrival of the highway, the town had few visitors other than miners. (Most travelers still tend to use Highway 49 to Fresnillo via Gomez Palacio, rather than Highway 45.) Rich metallic ores were first discovered around here in the middle of the 16th century and the mines are still producing.
The Palace of Pedro Alvarado, near the Plaza San Juan de Dios, is an elegant mansion built and lived in by a lucky 19th century miner who struck it rich in the silver mines.
