[1] Presented at the meeting of February 1st, 1911.
Monterrey, the Capital of the State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, is built on
the site of the old village of Santa Lucia de Leon, which was
established in 1583 by the Governor of the Kingdom of Leon, Don Luis
Carabajal. Four years later Carabajal was imprisoned by the Inquisition,
and the village of Santa Lucia was abandoned by its few inhabitants.
In 1596, Captain Diego Montemayor, a resident of Saltillo, in the
adjoining State, wishing to render a service to his king, Philip II of
Spain, assembled his friends, and on September 20th of that year,
proceeded to establish a town on the site of the old village on the
northern side of the principal spring at the place. The town was named
"Nuestra Senora de Monterrey" (Our Lady of Monterrey), after the Count
of Monterrey (Ojos de Santa Lucia y Valle de Extremadura), the ruling
Governor of New Spain, as Mexico was then called.
Monterrey is approximately in the center of the State of Nuevo Leon, 1 deg.
12' west of Mexico City, and in latitude 26 deg. 40' N. It is a distributing
railway center on the main line of the National Railroad, 270 km. from
the Rio Grande at Laredo, 1,022 km. from Mexico, and 520 km. from
Tampico by the Mexican Central Railway. It is the center of many large
industries, and is the second largest manufacturing city in the
Republic.