Guanajuato City was the place of the first real battle of the Mexican Revolution in 1810. There had been a famine in Guanajuato, and in response, the Spaniards built a massive granery fortress to hold the grain and control its distribution. Just months after the granery was completed, the revolution started. Most of Guanajuato’s military, 300 of Guanajuato’s richest Spaniards, along with their riches and millions of pesos, locked themselves in the granery for safety. A group of 20,000 Mexican rebels, armed with sticks and stones, tried to attack the granery. The army guarded the door, shooting guns and arrows and throwing rocks at the revolutionaries. Then one of the miners “El Pipila” strapped a flat slab of stone on his back and crawled on his belly to the door. He painted it with tar and set it on fire. The revolutionaries rushed the building, and took the granery along with the city. Neighboring cities heard about this and surrendered quickly.
There is a funicular that goes up to this statue:
“Aún hay otras Alhóndigas por incendiar” (There are still other Alhóndigas [graneries] to burn)
