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Puerto Vallarta History
The official founding story of Las Peñas and thus
Puerto Vallarta claims that it was founded by
Guadalupe Sánchez Torres, on December 12, 1851, as
Las Peñas de Santa María de Guadalupe. Unfortunately
the record of the Sr. Sanchez's purchase of property
in Las Peñas dates the sale to 1859. As early as
1850 the area was already peopled by fisherman,
pearl divers, smugglers and foragers, all of whom
had something of a permanent existence in the area.
Puerto Vallarta is named after Ignacio Vallarta,
a former governor of Jalisco. In Spanish, Puerto
Vallarta is often shortened to "Vallarta," while
English speakers call the city P.V. for short.
Puerto Vallarta's proximity to the Bay of Banderas,
the agricultural valley of the Ameca River, and the
important mining centers in the Sierra have given
the town a more interesting past than most Mexican
tourist destinations. Puerto Vallarta was a thriving
Mexican village long before it became an
international tourist destination.
Prior to the 19th century there is archaeological
evidence of continuous human habitation from 580
B.C., and there is archeological evidence (from
sites near Ixtapa and in Col. Lázaro Cardenas) that
the area belonged to the Aztatlán culture which
dominated Jalisco, Nayarit and Michoacán from
approx. 900-1200 A.D.
Spanish missionary and conquistador documents
chronicle skirmishes between the Spanish colonizers
and the local peoples. In 1524, a large battle
between Hernán Cortés and an army of 10,000 to
20,000 Indians resulted in Cortés taking control of
much of the Ameca valley. The valley was then named
Banderas (flags).
During the 17th and 18th centuries the Banderas Valley and its beaches along the Bay of
Banderas served as supply points for ships seeking
refuge in the bay. The area also served as a point
where smuggled goods could be sent on to the Sierra
towns near Mascota, evading the customs operations
at San Blas, Nayarit.
During the nineteenth century the history of Puerto
Vallarta, then called El Carrizal or Las Peñas, was
linked to the history of the sierra towns of San
Sebastian, Talpa de Allende and Mascota. While today
these towns are considered quaint tourist
destinations, during much of the 18th century,
Mascota was Jalisco's second largest town, after
Guadalajara. Mascota and its neighboring towns
located in the high plateaus of the Sierra,
developed as agricultural towns to support the
growing mining operations in the Sierra.
During the 18th century, as Mascota grew, Puerto
Vallarta grew with it, transforming itself from a
small fishing and pearl-diving village into a small
beach-landing port serving the Sierra towns. At the
time the main port serving Jalisco was located at
San Blas, but the inconvenient overland route from
San Blas to the Sierra towns made Puerto Vallarta a
more convenient alternative for smaller shipments,
and smuggling operations which evaded the tax
collectors at San Blas. Puerto Vallarta also became
a vacation destination for residents of the Sierra
Towns, and by the mid 19th century. Most of the
early settlers in Puerto Vallarta were families who
had left the Sierra towns.
1859 saw an important turning point for the small
village, then known as Las Peñas. That year the
Union en Cuale mining company took possession of
land extending from Los Arcos to the Pitillal river
and extending back up into the Sierra for miles. The
Union en Cuale company was owned in part by the
Camarena brothers of Guadalajara who had developed a
small trade in oil palm in Las Peñas. The purpose of
the government's sale of the land to the company was
to provide for shipping, fishing and agricultural
support for the mining operations which were growing
quite quickly in the Sierra.
Las Peñas developed into a self-sustaining village of significant size in
the 1860s as the mouth of the Cuale area was
exploited to support the operations of the newly
enfranchised Union en Cuale company. 1859 marks the
beginning of Puerto Vallarta as a village. Twenty
years later, by 1885, the village comprised about
250 homes and about 800 residents.
The early Municipality - early 20th century
In 1918, the village was elevated to
municipality status and renamed after former state
governor Ignacio Vallarta. During the early years of
the 20th century most of Puerto Vallarta was owned
by the Union en Cuale company controlled by the
American Alfred Geist. Mr Geist sold land only in
large plots at prices that were quite high for the
time and otherwise leased the land on short term
leases. To remedy this situation and to enable the
new municipality to develop, the citizens petitioned
the government for a land grant based on the new
constitution's provisions.
In 1921 the Local Agrarian Commission approved a
grant of some 9,400 hectares (23,000 acres or 39
square miles), with the land to be expropriated from
the Union en Cuale company.The grant was established
as an ejido holding (a farming cooperative
administered by the government). Legal squabbling
over the size of the land grant, and the ejido
status of the properties involved would stymie
growth in Puerto Vallarta into the 1960s, as
developers were reluctant to build anything too
substantial on land for which one could not obtain
clear title. (Ejido land is controlled by
individuals who are given licenses to use it, but it
could not be sold, subdivided or leased.)
During the Cristero War the municipality was twice
taken over by Cristero forces (April 1927 and
January 1928). After it was recaptured for a second
time, the national government stationed a small
garrison there under Major Ángel Ocampo. The
garrison was stationed near the mouth of the Cuale
River and is responsible for planting many of the
palms that now line the beaches on near the mouth of
the Cuale River to help limit beach erosion during
heavy rains in October 1928. One casualty of the
skirmishes was local pastor Padre Ayala who was
exiled to Guadalajara for his role in fomenting the
local revolt. He would die there in 1943, though his
remains would be returned 10 years later to be
interred in the main parish church of Our Lady of
Guadalupe.
As mining activities in the Sierra waned in the
early years of the 20th century, Puerto Vallarta and
the agricultural valley to the North of the city
became important destinations for those leaving the
Sierra towns and looking for a place to settle. Many
of those who arrived had family members already
living in Puerto Vallarta, and the pattern of
migration that ensued turned the town into a
collection of more or less extended families, giving
it the cohesion of a typical sierra town.
From 1925 until 1935 the Montgomery Fruit Company
operated in the area around Ixtapa. For ten years it
provided an important source of employment in the
area until friction with government over labor
issues eventually led to the venture being
abandoned.
The first airplane service arrived in 1932, with
electrical service on a small scale arriving about
the same time. The first suspension bridge over the
Cuale went up in 1933. The city's first plumbing
system was started in 1939. In 1942 Puerto Vallarta
was finally connected by road to Compastela, Nayarit.
Until then the only access to Puerto Vallarta was by
sea, air, or by mule trails to the sierra towns.
Also in 1942 in the New York based magazine Modern
Mexico the first advertisement for a Puerto Vallarta
vacation appeared, sponsored by the Air Transport
Company of Jalisco. By 1945 the company was landing
DC-3s in Puerto Vallarta.
By the 1950s Puerto Vallarta had started to attract
Americans, mostly writers and artists in search of a
retreat from the USA of the era of Eisenhower and
McCarthy. Gringo Gulch began to develop as an
expatriate neighborhood on the hill above the
Centro. The city also attracted Mexican artists and
writers who were willing to trade the comforts of
life in the larger cities for its scenic and bucolic
advantages.
In 1956 the Mascota mule trail was replaced by a
packed dirt road. 24-hour electrical generation
arrived in 1958. A new airport arrived in 1962
connecting Puerto Vallarta with Los Angeles via
Mazatlán, and the Mexican Aviation Company began
offering package trips.
By the early 1960s the population had started to
spread beyond the Centro and Gringo Gulch, and the
Colonias of 5 Diciembre (north of the Centro) and
Emiliano Zapata (south of the Cuale River) began to
grow.
1960s to the present
Four influences converged during the 1960s and early
1970s to launch Puerto Vallarta into its trajectory
toward becoming a major resort destination.
First the federal government finally resolved
century old property disputes involving the status
of communal land originally appropriated from the
Union en Cuale mining company to be parceled out as
farms. The communal (ejido) status of the land had
stifled development in the town for much of the 20th
century. The transition to private ownership of much
of the land within present city limits culminated in
the appropriation of much of the land in 1973 and
the establishment of the Vallarta Land Trust (
Fideicomiso) to oversee selling the land and using
the revenue to develop the city's infrastructure.
Second, the American director John Huston filmed his
1963 film The Night of the Iguana in Mismaloya, a
small town just south of Puerto Vallarta. During the
filming, the US media gave extensive coverage to
Elizabeth Taylor's extramarital affair with Richard
Burton, as well as covering the frequent fighting
between Huston and the film's four stars. The
subsequent publicity helped put Puerto Vallarta on
the map for US tourists.
Third, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the
Mexican government invested in the development of
highways, airport and utility infrastructure, making
Puerto Vallarta easily accessible both by air and
ground transportation for the first time. The city's
first tourist boom occurred in the late 1960s and
early 1970s because of this work. During those years
most tourists in Puerto Vallarta were Mexican, and
the reason they started traveling to Puerto Vallarta
then was because the trip between Guadalajara and
Puerto Vallarta was made sufficiently convenient
because of the governments investment in
infrastructure.
Finally, in 1968 the municipality was elevated to
the status of a City. The change in status reflected
the renewed interest shown by the federal and state
government in developing the city as an
international resort destination.
The August 1970 visit of US President Richard Nixon
who met with Mexican President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz in
Puerto Vallarta for treaty negotiations. The visit
showcased Puerto Vallarta's recently developed
airport and resort infrastructure, and thus
contributed to the growing visibility of the city as
a resort destination.
Prior to 1973, hotels in the city tended to be
modest, and only two large sized luxury hotels
existed (the Real and the Posada Vallarta). After
1973 Puerto Vallarta experienced rapid growth in the
number of larger luxury hotels, culminating in 1980
with the opening of the Sheraton Bugambillas. In
1982 the peso was devalued and Puerto Vallarta
became a bargain destination for US tourists.
Consequently the mid-80s saw a marked and rapid rise
in the tourist volume. This in turn fueled more
development, for example the Marina which was
started in 1986. By the early 90s development of
other destinations in Mexico like Ixtapa and Cancún
caused a slump in travel to Puerto Vallarta.
It was also during the early 1980s that Puerto
Vallarta experienced a marked increase in problems
related to poverty. While the devaluation of the
peso brought record numbers of tourists to the area,
it also stifled investment and thus construction. So
while more and more workers were arriving in Puerto
Vallarta to try to cash in on the booming tourist
trade, less and less was being done to accommodate
them with housing and related infrastructure. So
during the mid 1980s the city experienced a rapid
growth in impromptu communities poorly served by
even basic public services, and with a very low
standard of living as the boom of the early 80s
leveled out. During the late 1980s the city worked
to alleviate the situation by developing housing and
infrastructure.
In 1993 the federal Agrarian Law was amended
allowing for more secure foreign tenure of former
ejido land. Those controlling ejido land were
allowed to petition for regularization, a process
that converted their controlling interest into fee
simple ownership. This meant that the property could
be sold, and it led to a boom in the development of
private residences, mostly condominiums, and a new
phase of Puerto Vallarta's expansion began, centered
more on accommodating retirees, snow-birds, and
those who visited the city enough to make purchasing
a condominium or a time-share a cost-effective
option.
Puerto Vallarta Geography
Puerto Vallarta lays on a narrow coastal plain
at the foot of the Sierras Cuale and San Sebastián,
parts of the Sierra Madre Occidental. The plain
widens to the North, reaching its widest point along
the Ameca river. Three rivers flow from the Sierra
through the area, from South to North, the Cuale,
the Pitillal, and the Ameca. A number of arroyos
also run from the Sierra to the coastal plain. Many
of the valleys of these rivers and arroyos are
inhabited. Also development has to some extent
spread up the hillsides from the coastal plain.
The city proper comprises four main areas: the hotel
zone along the shore to the North, Olas Altas - Col
Zapata to the South of the Cuale river (named Zona
Romantica recently in some tourist brochures), the
Centro along the shore in between these two areas,
and a number of residential areas to the East of the
hotel zone. The oldest section of the town is the
area of Col. Centro near the church of Our Lady of
Guadalupe, especially Hidalgo street.
Seismic history
Puerto Vallarta, like much of the west coast of
North America, is prone to earthquakes, though
Puerto Vallarta tends to experience only peripheral
effects of earthquakes centered further south.
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Rapid
growth in tourist volume in Puerto Vallarta has given rise to
rapid growth in hotel and rental apartment, condominium and
housing construction. 
