Travel Guide Cerro San Pedro

This is the site of the mines that gave rise to the creation of the town of San Luis Potosí. It was once a prosperous village, but mining activities stopped at the end of the 1940s and the place gradually became depopulated, so much so that today it has only about 100 inhabitants. After being forgotten, the village has again gained a high media profile since 2000, when the mining company Minera San Xavier began to exploit gold and silver deposits in the open air, generating a major conflict with the inhabitants of the region, who denounce the disappearance of the Cerro de San Pedro, an important symbol as it is featured on the coat of arms of the state of San Luis Potosi. The effects that this type of mining has on the environment and health are indeed more than undesirable: the method of exploitation of the deposits consists of literally crushing and crushing the mountain to extract the metals with chemical products and then replacing the residues (a kind of dead dust) a few kilometers away. Nevertheless, the village of Cerro de San Pedro is worth a visit, not only for its historical importance, but also because it has the charm of a ghost town, whose houses still have the hand-painted signs on the walls. There are two historical buildings: the church of San Nicolás de Tolentino, patron saint of miners, and the temple of San Pedro Apóstol. On weekends, restaurants and bars open their doors to visitors.