Diego de Montemayor founded a northern Mexican forge
Monterrey, capital of Nuevo León, anchors northern Mexico’s industrial metro and rates among the country’s most livable cities. Continuous settlement begins with Diego de Montemayor’s 1596 founding; the name honors Viceroy Gaspar de Zúñiga, Count of Monterrey, whose Galician roots supplied the toponym.
Rock carvings and cave paintings in the nearby mountains point to four peoples: the Azalapas, Huachichiles, Coahuiltecos and Borrados. Alberto del Canto made the first attempt, calling his settlement Santa Lucía, but native attacks drove the Spaniards off. Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva then won Philip II's consent for the New Kingdom of León, reaching it in 1580 and setting up San Luis Rey de Francia in 1582, before the territory lay empty for eight years. Montemayor returned with 13 families and on 20 September 1596 founded the Metropolitan City of Our Lady of Monterrey beside the Santa Lucía spring.
The viceroy it honours governed New Spain from 1595 to 1603, and his family came from Monterrei in Galicia. Through the colonial era the town linked three trade routes: Tampico for European goods, Saltillo toward Mexico City, and San Antonio toward British and French colonies. That balance made it an economic hub after independence, and it became capital of the new state of Nuevo León in 1824.
Turmoil followed. It served as capital of the breakaway Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840 and later of the Republic of the Sierra Madre. In 1846 the Battle of Monterrey, the first large engagement of the Mexican–American War, ended in Mexican surrender after fierce street fighting, and local generals such as Mariano Escobedo later fought the French.
The Cuauhtémoc brewery opened in 1890, railways arrived that decade, and the 1900 steel foundry grew into one of the world's largest. Workers from different firms struck in solidarity with one another, sparking clashes into the 1940s. The metro area, second in Mexico with about 5.3 million people, now leads in steel, cement, glass and auto parts, and it hosted 1986 World Cup matches and the largest private university in Mexico.
Source: Monterrey
