The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991 - April, 1992 Page: 225
598 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Vzew from the Olo de Agua
Capt. Francisco de Urdifiola. Concessions granted by the cabzldo (town
council) to the new settlers included a large tract of fertile land adjacent
to the villa upon which the Pueblo de San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala
was founded, as well as rights to three-fourths of the waters of the Qjo
de Agua. Without delay the industrious Tlaxcalans diverted their ap-
portioned water to irrigate new orchards, the germ of the thriving fruit
industry for which Saltillo is still renowned."'
During the following centuries Saltillo's water system was improved;
by the i 84os a relatively sophisticated network of reservoirs, aqueducts,
and underground channels conducted the effluence of the Ojo de
Agua to public and private cisterns and fountains throughout the city.
When Gen. Zachary Taylor's Army of Occupation made Saltillo its for-
ward base of operations during the 1846-1848 U.S. invasion of Mex-
ico, the city's waterworks captured the interest of curious Yankees. Lt.
Harvey Neville of the Second Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry
had an opportunity to examine the system in detail in early Febru-
ary 1847 while his unit was camped on the Mesa del Ojo de Agua (see
fig. 2)11":
The town is watered by a large spring that breaks out of the hills and is con-
veyed all over town under ground through cemented aqueducts made of stone
and mortar. Near the spring the water crosses a deep ravine l on a bridge of
stone of about 4 feet wide which is also covered with the same material, and
forms a foot way across the ravine. Where this strikes the level on the opposite
side, the top is left off for about 40 yards, which makes a general watering
trough. It then enters the ground and takes its course through the various
streets. ''
All of the individual features described by Neville, from the spring-
head to the open watering channel across the ravine, would have been
within the vision of the photographer from his vantage point at the Ojo
de Agua. Although the spring and aqueduct do not appear in the view,
0lIbid , 142-146. The Pueblo de San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala, temporarily renamed Vil-
lalongin im 1827, was annexed by Saltillo in 1831. Ibid., 223
"Ibid., 212, locates the army camp on the "mesa del Ojo de Agua, adjacent to the principal
spring." This is consistent with a description of the camp in Otto B Engelmann (trans and
ed ), "The Second Illinois in the Mexican War. Mexican War Letters of Adolph Engelmann,
1846-1847," Journal of the Illinois State llutorzcal Society, XXVI ( Jan., 1934), 435
"The "ravine" was the Arroyo del Olo de Agua Vito Alessio Robles, Francuco de Urdiiola y el
Norte de la Nueva Espafia (2nd ed , Mexico: Editorial Porria, S.A., 1981), map opp 186.
"Mexican War Diary of Harvey Neville, Feb 2, 1847 (quotation), Harvey Neville Collection
(Manuscripts Dept., Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, Illinois). For a vivid description of
Saltillo's water system in 1866 see William Marshall Anderson, An Ame) scan in Maximllhan's Mex-
zco, r865-1866 The Diaries of William Marshall Andeson, ed Ram6n Eduardo Ruiz (San Ma-
rmino, Calif The Huntington Library, 1959), 74-75.225
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991 - April, 1992, periodical, 1992; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117153/m1/271/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.