Through History

By: Mario Martini (Grandeza Mazatleca)

“By 1849 there were telltale damages, such as unhealthy conditions, brought on by the incessant and irregular growth of Mazatlan.  The larger part of the city lived in these conditions and so city hall helped install the Civil Hospital of the Mexican Empire.  It was regulated by a health board and was built up on el Cerro de la Cruz.  Reports from those days tell us that a great cause of mortality was infant tetanus.  It seems that 7 out of every 10 children born back then died of this disease.  Other major causes of mortality were syphilis, smallpox, abscesses, contusions, dysentery, rheumatism and bronchitis. By 1868 there were already three hospitals in Mazatlan, the civil one and two military ones. 

One of these military ones was French and the other was an improvised one to take care of Mexican soldiers of the Rivas Brigade.  “Surviving the ravages of the epidemic of 1849, the intervention of the USA army in 1847-48, the riots of 1852 that refused the fiscal reforms imposed by governor Francisco de la Vega that culminated with a military uprising financed by foreign businessmen, the later intent to politically separate Mazatlan and the south of Sinaloa from the rest of Sinaloa and the commercial rival back then with the city of Culiacan (both cities accused each other of being smugglers), the mixed Mazatlan society-invested as capital of the state by governor Pedro Valades-once again found the  path to progress in1854.” (text from the Teaching and Investigation Unit of General Martiniano Carvajal Hospital by Fernando Higuera Mariscal, Dr. Carlos Osuna Tiznado and Jorge Vidal Garate, 1999).

Mazatlan had a population of 6, 845 inhabitants back then, including 129 foreign residents (90 French, 56 Spanish, 18 German, 17 Italians and 20 Chinese).  There were 83 arts and office establishments, 27 shoe repair shops, 12 carpenter shops, 7 tailor shops, 6 iron works, 5 hotels, 5 hat making factories, one printing press and 12 brick and tile ovens.  There were some 138 businesses, 8 stock warehouses, 2 notions warehouses, one pharmacy, 8 clothing stores, 6 first class grocery stores, 57 second class grocery stores, 6 general stores, 5 inns, 2 notion and haberdashery stores, 2 cafeterias, 2 motels, one butcher shops and a pawn shop (notes by Luis Maria Servo, Bulletin of the Geographic and Statistic Society of Mexico, 1859). Since then, ostentation and careless spending-wrong paths to placate the restless appetite of envy- characterized the Mazatlan society, a society that longed to imitate the European monarchies.

“Money stimulated laziness back then in the homes of the rich hacienda owners and miners.  There were crazy folk who wanted to make the beams of their ceilings out of silver.  The poor people didn’t pay contributions back in this time of ignorance and bad governing.  The European businessmen made considerable fortunes in a short time and, seduced by the lure of earnings, established themselves finally on the coast starting in the 1930s.” (My Old Mazatlan, an article by Miguel Valades Lejarza, 1988).