La Cruz de Loreto
Cruz de Loreto is a town that belongs to the municipality of Tomatlán and the state of Jalisco. It is located on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
Its GPS location is within the coordinates:
Longitude (dec): -105.458333
Latitude (dec): 20.006667
The locations medium height over sea level is 30 meters.
According to the census of 2010 there were 1776 inhabitants, 893 men and 883 women. The age distribution is 756 minors and 1,020 adults from which 149 are 60 years or older.
The life of the people is modest but they don’t live in a state of margination. 90% of families have a house and in average there are 4 people per house, they have basic sanitary services, electricity, tv and washing machine. The town has a preschool, elementary, secondary school and high school as well as a health center for basic services.
Culture of the town
Cruz de Loreto celebrates traditions that are common to the country, in their very own style. To mention some of the traditions and events:
· January the dance of New Year.
· March or April, the holy week services and its traditional dishes such as custard, milk rice, and coconut atole. On Easter week the families like to go camping to the Beaches of Mixmaloya or las Peñitas.
· May the horsemanship fair in Tomatlan
· July, the graduations of kinder garden, elementary, secondary and high schools during the summer.
· September, The Motherland Festivities from 14th to 17th, to celebrate the independence of Mexico.
· November, pilgrimages during 9 days in honor of Saint John of the Cross, the town’s patron saint.
· December, the pilgrimages in honor to our lady of Guadalupe and the Christmas posadas (Mexican traditional parties celebrated between December 16 to the 24th).
For Rancho Cruzeto, to live the customs and traditions with its community is an essential aspect of our Company philosophy.
May festivities
We participate with the city council of Tomatlán in the May horsemanship festivities. We donate food for everybody in one of the days during this 10 day fair. The night before we make the traditional lantern. This is decorated with cartoon type pictures of our workers, narrating the funny episodes of work. The people in town and all the workers come to dance with the lantern, behind the band and the horses. The day of the meal we bring all of our employees to enjoy the town, the food and then to the rodeo and the bands that come from different parts of Mexico.
San Juan de la Cruz
In November, Cruzeto also participates with its workers in the pilgrimage to Saint John of the Cross. We decorate a parade float and walk toward the church with our employees to thank God for the blessings of the year.
Christmas
As December comes near, we make a Christmas party with our employees and add the German touch, where our German manager dresses up as Santa and gives treats to the children.
Reference points
· La Cruz de Loreto (the cross where the town gets its name)
· Main square
· Church
· Fishing coop
· Hotelito Desconocido
· Marine Station
History of the town
To put in context it is important to mention that the municipality of Tomatlán, to which La Cruz de Loreto belongs, has studies done by the archeologist Joseph B. Mountjoy PhD. named “Archeological Salvage Tomatlán Project” which reveal that 2000 before Christ, there had been human settlements in this area, formed by Nahuatl origin tribes. In 1525 this area was colonized by the Spaniards, led by Francisco Cortés of San Buenaventura. The Spaniards dominated this place until 1820, year that the independence of Mexico was consummated.
José Ramirez, a native of this town and son of one of the founding families told us that the story of La Cruz de Loreto began at the Playon de Mixmaloya (The beach of Mixmaloya)
To this virgin beach, two big families arrived from the towns of La Villa and Autlan; they were the families Espinoza Maldonado and Romero Rodríguez. When they settled in this zone, Mr. Juan Gaviño, approached them to tell them that that was his land. He propose to employ them and begin to build his hacienda.
We shall think that Juan Gaviño was of Spanish ascendance, and he was one of the hacienda owners that was left after the Independence. The main activity of his hacienda was livestock and he employed all the families.
In 1932 there was a big Tsunami, it dragged the hacienda, houses, livestock and all the belongings of the residents. The families then started to walk uphill to protect themselves. Once they arrived to the area where now La Cruz de Loreto is, they sent one of them, Juan Ramírez Fonseca in an expedition ask for help to Tomatlán. The owner of one of the stores Juan Dominguez lend him horses and gave him clothing and food.
Juan Gaviño slowly reestablished his Hacienda. A few years after Heriberto Michel Santana, and Alfonso García García, arrived to the town, two other hacienda owners. They both gave work to the residents and had their stores to pay people with goods. They were progressing with agriculture and livestock. In the forties Tomatlán began growing Tabaco, that brought employment to the people of all the area including Cruz de Loreto. By the sixties Tomatlán became the municipality that introduced more livestock to the capital city of the state of Jalisco, Guadalajara.
In 1949 the peasants of la Cruz de Loreto formed an expedition to Mexico City commanded by Don Juan Romero to request the foundation of the Ejido Cruz de Loreto; (Ejido is a type of common land ownership in Mexico, this was done through the government expropriation of private properties and donating it to the farmers called ejidatarios). It wasn’t until 1968 that the resolution to give 1200 hectares to the first 75 ejidatarios was done. In 1975 the first enlargement was granted for 900 more hectares and in 1980 a second enlargement was granted with 330 hectares. By the then there were already 125 ejidatarios.
In 1955 the fishermen coop was established, when they realized the amount of fish there was in the two estuaries: Ermitaño and Aguadulce. Around 30 families were fully dedicated to fishing, besides being ejidatarios.
The government of Luis Echeverria (1970-1976) focused its economic policies in supporting the ejidos to generate progress in agriculture. Tomatlán was highly favored municipality. The dam Cajon de Peña was built from 1970 to 1976, the most important in the state of Jalisco. The government also built canals to give water for irrigation to their land. They opened up banks with a rural focus and gave credit for the purchase of tractors, seeds, cattle, etc.
The farmers began to get involved in the management of their own land. The government of Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) also gave huge support to Cruz de Loreto in economic funds for the growth of the fields.
Unfortunately many farmers had very little business culture. So they were not able to generate return on their investments nor pay their credits. Many people migrated to other cities, and other arrived to buy their land.
Cruz de Loreto remains a town of farmers and fishermen. The natural wealth and biodiversity, landscape and ecosystems have put the eyes of investors with seek on the tourist and real-estate sector in this town.
The first foreign investor to arrive was Marcelo Murzilli in 1990. He built the Hotelito Desconocido, a completely ecologic luxury hotel concept. This hotel has hosted people that were willing to pay thousands of dollars for an experience of direct contact with nature and unplugging from civilization. In the year 2007 the hotel was sold to Mexican investors and it was closed for an intensive remodeling work, it was reopened again in the year 2013.
The second foreign investor to arrive was Mr. Eugen Rapp, who founded Rancho Cruzeto in year 2005. The ranch has been developing over a period of 10 years, and dabbled in the areas of pineapple and livestock. The potential of this land is as big as dreams can go, to learn about the history of Rancho Cruzeto click here.
Attractions of the area
Santo Santiago Temple
It is a cultural manifestation of art, religious architecture. The hurch is colonial style, similar to the missions of the high California. It was built in 1769 to 1774. It has a bell from 1730. We can also admire to sculptures: The Inmaculate Conception, and the Lord of Expiration. These are highly venerated images.
Cajon de Peñas Dam
It is located to the north east of the town of Tomatlán on km. 130km of federal highway 200 and 18 km. of dirt road towards the town “Viejo Santiago”. Currently is a highly attractive area for the visitors, it has rustic restaurants, hotels and aquatic transportation. They sell a highly rated mollusk called tegololo which is known all over the world for its exquisite flavor and difficulty to reproduce. These can only be found in this dam and in Veracruz.
Rock Art
All along the bank of the Tomatlan River, there are traces of the old cultures which settled down in this region. There are numerous petroglyphs; one that stands out is the “Game of Patolli”. There are only two of those in the Occident of Mexico.
Beaches
This area has beautiful virgin beaches such as Chalacatepec, Peñitas, Costa Majahuas, El Chorro, Peñitas de la Cruz and Playon de Mixmaloya.