General Cepeda is a city and seat of the
municipality of General Cepeda, in the north-eastern
Mexican state of
Coahuila. The town is named after Victoriano Cepeda Camacho (1826-1892), a general and a governor of Coahuila. Until 1892, the town was named San Francisco de los Patos and had been the headquarters for two of the largest estates in all of the Americas.
History
Until 1892, General Cepeda was named San Francisco de los Patos. Patos was established in 1575 and initially the land was owned by Francisco de Urdiñola. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, the "splendid hacienda" in the town was the headquarters of two of the largest
latifundios (land holdings) in the Americas. Urdiñola began what came to be called the
Marquisate of San Miguel de Aguayo which, after bankruptcy, was purchased by the
Sánchez Navarro family in 1840. After the expropriation of the Sánchez Navarro latifundio in 1866, the Patos headquarters became the
municipal building Municipal Building may refer to the following places:
United States Arkansas
* Crossett Municipal Building, Crossett, AR, listed on the NRHP in Arkansas
* Municipal Building (El Dorado, Arkansas), El Dorado, AR, listed on the National Register o ...
of General Cepeda.
Geography
The town of General Cepeda is located about in straight-line distance west of the state capital of
Saltillo
Saltillo () is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Coahuila and is also the municipal seat of the municipality of the same name. Mexico City, Monterrey, and Saltillo are all connected by a major railroad and highwa ...
. General Cepeda has an elevation of . The town is located in the northern foothills of the ''Sierra de Los Patos'' (Duck Mountains) which at ''La Concordia'' Mountain reach a maximum elevation of . The mountains are cooler and receive more precipitation than the surrounding desert and the waterways flowing down from the mountains made the General Cepeda area feasible for irrigated agriculture and attractive to Spanish settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries. When the Spanish first visited the area in 1568, a small lake they called Laguna de los Patos (Duck Lake) was near what became the town.
Climate
General Cepeda is on the southern edge of the
Chihuahua Desert Chihuahua may refer to:
Places
*Chihuahua (state), a Mexican state
**Chihuahua (dog), a breed of dog named after the state
**Chihuahua cheese, a type of cheese originating in the state
**Chihuahua City, the capital city of the state
** Chihuahua Mu ...
and has a
Köppen classification Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author an ...
BSh climate (warm, semi-arid
steppe), although its annual average precipitation of is barely more than the upper limit of precipitation of BWh (desert) climates. Under the Trewartha system, the climate is classified as BWab (semi-arid steppe with hot summers and warm winters). Most of the precipitation is in the summer months from June to September.
["General Cepeda, Coahuila", ''Weatherbase,']
accessed 6 Jan 2018
See also
*
José de Azlor y Virto de Vera
José de Azlor y Virto de Vera, second Marquis of San Miguel de Aguayo by marriage (born c. 1677 – died 9 March 1734), commonly known as the ''Marqués de Aguayo'', was the governor of the provinces of Coahuila and of the New Philippines in N ...
, the Marques de San Miguel del Aguayo
*Sánchez Navarro latifundio, this large estate in the 18th and 19th centuries was based in San Francisco de los Patos, now General Cepeda.
References
{{Authority control
Populated places in Coahuila
History of Coahuila