Cucurpe is the municipal seat of Cucurpe Municipality in the

Mexican state A Mexican State (), officially the Free and Sovereign State (), is a constituent federative entity of Mexico according to the Constitution of Mexico. Currently there are 31 states, each with its own constitution, government, state governor, a ...

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

History

Originally the territory was occupied by the

Opatas The Opata (, /ˈopata/) are an Indigenous people in Mexico. Opata territory, the "Opatería" in Spanish, encompasses the mountainous northeast and central part of the state of Sonora, extending to near the border with the United States. Historica ...

and the Pimas Altas. In 1647 the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

Marcos del Río founded the first Spanish settlement with the category of mission and gave it the name of Los Santos Reyes de Cucurpe. In 1859 it was given the title of "Villa" and in 1932 it became a municipality. In 1691, the Moravian Jesuit Adam Gilg and the Carniolan Jesuit founded the mission of St. Thaddeus in Cucurpe, but it was destroyed in the same year by the Seris. This town was once the considered the "Rim of Christendom" and it was from here that Father

Eusebio Kino Eusebio Francisco Kino, Jesuits, SJ (, ; 10 August 1645 – 15 March 1711), often referred to as Father Kino, was an Italian Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer, mathematician and astronomer born in the Prince-Bishopric of Tre ...

rode out to do his now historic work in the area then known as the

Pimería Alta The ''Pimería Alta'' (translated to 'Upper Pima Land'/'Land of the Upper Pima' in English) was an area of the 18th century Sonora y Sinaloa, Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, that encompassed parts of what are today south ...

. He rode out on 14 March 1687, 24 years and one day before his death on 15 March 1711.Polzer, Charles. 1968. ''A Kino Guide: His Missions - His Monuments''. Southwestern Mission Research Center, Tucson AZ.

Geography

Rivers

There are two rivers that have clear waters for most of the year and turbulent currents in the rainy season that lasts from June through August. The Dolores River and the Saracachi come together to form the

Sonora River Río Sonora (''Sonora River'') is a 402-kilometer-long river of Mexico. It lies on the Pacific slope of the Mexican state of Sonora and it runs into the Gulf of California. Watershed The Sonora River watershed covers of public land. Slopes rang ...

, which flows into the Abelardo L. Rodríguez Reservoir near

Hermosillo Hermosillo (), formerly called Pitic (as in ''Santísima Trinidad del Pitic'' and ''Presidio del Pitic''), is a city in the center of the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the municipal seat of the Hermosillo municipality, the state's ...

Climate

Due to the higher elevation the climate is cooler than in the desert to the west. The annual average temperature is 16.5 °C, with summer temperatures rarely reaching 40° and winter days bringing frost and some snow in the higher elevations. The average annual rainfall is 466.8 millimeters.Cucurpe
@ Enciclopedia de los Municipios de Mexico (Spanish)

Economic activity

Most of the work force is employed in agriculture, which concentrates on growing grasses for cattle fodder. The cattle industry is modest and suffers from lack of infrastructure. There is one mine, Santa Gertrudis, which has offered a new source of employment.

San Francisco mine

This former gold-silver-molybdenum mine, located about 3 km SE of Cucurpe, is famous among

mineral collector Mineral collecting is the hobby of systematically collecting, identifying and displaying mineral specimens. Mineral collecting can also be a part of the profession of mineralogy and allied geologic specialties. Individual collectors often spe ...

s for producing exceptionally fine specimens of

wulfenite Wulfenite is a lead molybdate mineral with the formula Pb Mo O4. It often occurs as thin tabular crystals with a bright orange-red to yellow-orange color, sometimes brown, although the color can be highly variable. In its yellow form it is some ...

References

External links

Cucurpe
— ''@ Sonora Turismo (Spanish)''
Santa Gertrudis mine website
{{Authority control Missions in Sonora Populated places established in 1647 Jesuit history in North America