A picture is worth a thousand words, so instead, I am inviting you on a pictorial tour of old San Miguel with images of yesteryear. One of the longest streets in the city begins at the top of the hill on Salida a Queretaro, where a small chapel called El Calvario marks its beginning. At that point the street is San Francisco, but as it wanders down through the center of town it changes its name several times. At Relox, San Francisco becomes Calle Principal as it covers the length of the Jardin Principal on one side, and the government houses, and tourism offices on the other. It is here where you are likely to be picked up by webcam cameras: Live WebCam in San Miguel de Allende.
Here is Calle Principal in the early part of the 20th century. On the left side, beyond the elevated part of the Jardin, is the Casa de la Canal, also called Casa del Mayorazgo, which today is owned by Banamex. In front of it, in the right side of the photo is where Starbucks is today, but at that time there were only one level houses. The two-story buildings on the right are still there today, but what is missing is the tall building currently on the corner of Principal and Hidalgo—the former Posada San Francisco, not yet present in 1918. It was built in 1939.
The street changes names once again after you cross Hidalgo, and it becomes known as Calle de la Canal, in honor of the eponymous family whose mansion extends from the corner of Hidalgo almost halfway down the block.
From there on, it is Canal Street all the way past Quebrada—with an overhead bridge—all the way over Puente de Guanajuato where it crosses the Arroyo Cachinches and then becomes known as Calzada de la Estacion. It then passes by the train station—where a train deposited passengers on the outskirts of town until the 1980s—and ends at the railroad tracks.
Once over the tracks, the road diverges into three branches: a sharp left is the road following the tracks, a soft left is another road going toward San Miguel Viejo, and a third branch to the right, leads to La Cieneguita. But up to that point it is still the continuation of the same street that originated at the top of the hill as Calle San Francisco, all the way through the center of the town, and beyond, changing names on its path.
The photo on the left shows Canal Street looking eastward from the corner with Quebrada Street—the “broken” or “interrupted” street. That corner no longer exists because the two sides of the street were united with an overhead bridge. As a matter of fact, the lovely fountain seen in the lower right hand corner was destroyed when the bridge, named Puente de los Heroes—Heroes’ Bridge, was built in 1954. A plaque on the site commemorates the heroes of Independence.
Below is a photo of the “interrupted street” before the bridge connected the two sides. On the left side you can observe the fountain seen from the front. It was called the fountain of Generalissimo Allende and was built in 1848.
Once the two sides were united by the bridge, the landscape of Canal Street changed. Below is a view looking west with the bridge in place. The wall on the right is the enclosure of the courtyard of Las Monjas Church.
Another view of the bridge is shown below, this time seen underneath. Nothing has changed since then other than the fact that there are no vendors on the road these days. The one pictured here appears to be selling eggs, and perhaps other items. The cobblestone street, and the sidewalk is the same as then. Photo by Blaine Pennington, 1984.
Below is a view of Canal Street from the courtyard of Las Monjas—the Immaculate Conception church, as seen in 1945. The Parroquia rises majestically in the background. You can walk through this atrium today and it looks exactly the same—the wooden gates on the right leading to Canal Street and are unchanged. Perhaps the one change is that the trees are quite a bit larger these days.
Another view of Canal Street, looking east—the dome is Las Monjas. The tram tracks are no longer seen because they have been covered up by asphalt as the streets became modernized.
Finally, here is a photo that ought to bring a smile, and a further smile when you read this very “San Miguel” anecdote. Did you know that San Miguel used to have a traffic light in Centro? The photo is from some years ago, and shows a traffic cop holding an electric lantern (note the extension cord….), as he directs traffic along San Francisco Street (which turns into Canal), near the intersection with Juarez. To his left you can see the entrance to San Agustin Café.
Apparently this “traffic light” was put to use every year around December when the holiday traffic caused congestion in this very busy area. Then one year (in the 2000s) the lamp vanished, and San Miguel reverted to the old ways; not a single traffic light in town. Someone stole the lantern and that was it. But, a few weeks after its disappearance the lamp showed up at Tuesday’s Market! Proof of what they say: “You can find anything and everything in that market. It was promptly appropriated by the civil authorities and restored to its rightful place. Who knows where it is today.