Cucurpe is the municipal seat of

Cucurpe Municipality Cucurpe Municipality is a municipality in Sonora in north-western Mexico. Area and Population The total area of the municipality is 1,778.55 square kilometers, which represents 0.96% of the state total and 0.09% of the national total. The populat ...

in the

Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named Mexico, United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a sepa ...

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of 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 d ...

History

Originally the territory was occupied by the

Opatas The Opata (written Ópata in Spanish, pronounced with stress on the first syllable: /ˈopata/) are three indigenous peoples of Mexico. Opata territory, the “Opatería” in Spanish, encompasses the mountainous northeast and central part of the ...

and the Pimas Altas. In 1647 the

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which 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.Tho ...

Marcos del Río Marcos may refer to: People with the given name ''Marcos'' *Marcos (given name) Sports ;Surnamed * Dayton Marcos, Negro league baseball team from Dayton, Ohio (early twentieth-century) * Dimitris Markos, Greek footballer * Nélson Marcos, Portugu ...

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. This town was once the considered the "Rim of Christendom" and it was from here that Father

Eusebio Kino Eusebio Francisco Kino ( it, Eusebio Francesco Chini, es, Eusebio Francisco Kino; 10 August 1645 – 15 March 1711), often referred to as Father Kino, was a Tyrolean Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer and astronomer born i ...

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 Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, that encompassed parts of what are today southern Arizona in th ...

. 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.

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 range ...

, 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 located in the center of the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the municipal seat of the Hermosillo Municipality, Her ...

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 sp ...

s for producing exceptionally fine specimens of

wulfenite Wulfenite is a lead molybdate mineral with the formula Pb Mo O4. It can be most often found 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 ...

References

External links

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