QUIROGA: a MEXICAN MUNICIPIO — BRAND 



39 



(Herreros was probably the present Calle de 

 Negrete, and possibly Panaderos was the present 

 Guerrero). We can only guess what events are 

 commemorated by such names as Chivo, Culebra, 

 Escondida, Concordia, Sorpresa, Susto, Aliedo, 

 Gesto, etc. Despite all names applied by the 

 ayuntamiento, the residents of the streets away 

 from the center of town continue to use the older 

 local names. Also, owing to the many changes, 

 it is common for a given street to be called differ- 

 ently b}^ the different generations of residents; 

 e. g., what the officials and younger people term 

 Ramdn Corona is known to older residents as 

 Nacional, or Alcantarillas, or Calvario. 



Although we have seen titles of the eighteenth 

 century with a few street names, and though a 

 State law of 1827 required the division into 

 cuarteles and manzanas (which presupposes streets 

 with names), there is no evidence that any street 

 name plates or signs were in use prior to about 

 1860-63. In the periods just after the Wars of 

 Reform (1860-64) and the French Intervention 

 (1867-73) there was much activity in opening 

 new streets, building bridges, numbering the 

 houses, applying patriotic names, and constructing 

 a map of the town (which was reported lost in 

 1869). The heroes of the revolt from Spain were 

 given preference at first, and the three porticos 

 or portales erected on three sides of the Plaza 

 Principal (1861-62) were named after Hidalgo 

 and two of his heutenants (Morelos — replaced in 

 1864 by Matamoros, and Allende). The use of 

 these men's names for portales is especially com- 

 mon in Michoacan. The State of Alichoacdn 

 has been fortunate in subjects for names since the 

 majority of the revolutionary heroes were natives 

 of Michoacan proper or of the foi'mer province 

 which included Guanajuato (e. g., Hidalgo, 

 Morelos, Allende, Abasolo, Aldama, Bustamante, 

 Iturbide, Michelena, Matamoros, Rayon, etc.). 

 Michoacan and Guanajuato also provided many 

 of the great liberals of the reform period and war 

 against the French, and a number of tliese were 

 personally known in Quiroga (such as Ocampo, 

 Degollado, and Doblado). A number of names of 

 liberals were affixed to streets in 1863; were 

 removed during reactionary periods 1864-67 and 

 1872-76; and were restored -svith the coming to 

 power of Diaz in 1876. The Diaz regime spon- 

 sored and cultivated order in all forms, including 

 street names, which was most marked 1891-95 



(cuarto-centennial of Columbus, national census, 

 maps of all towns — that of Quii'oga of 1895 also 

 was lost), from 1900 to 1905, and in 1910 (cen- 

 tenary of the movement for independence). 

 Especially in 1901 and 1902 there were many 

 streets in Quiroga renamed for patriots of the 

 revolt from Spain and for heroes of the Reform 

 Wars and French Intervention. It is indicative 

 of Quiroga's adherence to local heroes that such 

 great out-of-state heroes as Bravo, Alvarez, and 

 Juarez were not represented imtil this time. 

 The last important period of name changes was 

 1921-23 (commemoration of Independence), but 

 these names did not last. 



PATTERN 



The present form of Quiroga town is that of an 

 asymmetrical lozenge based upon a north-south 

 axis (Ramdn Corona-Plaza Principal-Nacional) 

 1,631 meters long, and an east-west shorter axis 

 (Benito Juarez-Zaragoza) 1,283 meters in length. 

 The orientation is askew about 5° to 25° in differ- 

 ent parts of town; no street is perfectly straight; 

 and no block is a perfect rectangle. The inter- 

 section of the two axes {ejes) divides Quiroga into 

 four quarters or cuarteles which are numbered 

 clockwise beginning with I in the southwest quad- 

 rant. The series of truncated triangular and asym- 

 metrical polygonal blocks in the zone of contact of 

 the four quarters would seem to indicate that the 

 four barrios expanded or grew from eccentric nuclei 

 toward the official center of to^vn and filled the 

 vacant irregularly shaped space with the only 

 forms of manzanas possible. Until the middle of 

 the previous century the shape of Quiroga was that 

 of a crossroads string town with most of the popu- 

 lation along or near the north-south street which 

 was a segment of the road from P^tzcuaro to 

 Chucandu-o and Lake Cuitzeo, and a minor dis- 

 tribution along an east-west route (between the 

 springs of La Tepdricua and Atzitzindaro) by 

 which passed some traffic between Morelia and 

 Santa Fe, Zacapu, and other settlements to the 

 west. This east-west line was presumably the 

 boundary of the Barrio de San Miguel against the 

 barrios of La Ascensi6n and San Francisco. In 

 1861 the town acquired the equivalent of some 10 

 or 12 blocks at the west side of town by purchase 

 from Santa Fe; and in 1871 the area east of Ber- 

 riozabal-Galeana was purchased from members of 

 the Comunidad de Indigenas de Quiroga and di- 



