El Jícaro, Veracruz

El Jícaro is a small town in the municipality of Tierra Blanca, in the Mexican state of VeracruzIt standsin the Río Papaloapa basin, at the 83rd kilometer of the Veracruz–Tierra Blanca railroad.

History and local legendarium

It was founded at the beginning of the twentieth century on land that belonged to Don Joaquín Fernando Mora, the son of ranchers and ruined by the Revolution that began in 1910. Given the country's political and economic situation, all, including the ranchers and Don Joaquín, entered the conflict. In the '20s the country's situation began to change and a relative calm returned to the Mexico countryside. A friend and companion of Don Joaquín named Pedro Moreno asked of him a piece of land to build a house for his family. Pedro Moreno built his house near the railroad that in those days did not stop in this corner where there were only the houses of Don Joaquín and Pedro Moreno. One day the train stopped to place a sign with the name of the place at the 83rd kilometer, where the two families lived. The only person that they could find at that moment was Pedro Moreno, and they asked him the name of the place. He told them it had no name. The railroad men told him to invent one. In consternation, Pedro looked on all sides for a possible name for the place. Suddenly he saw that on one side of the highway was a fence of "chomo" full of fruit that they used as gourds , and for which he named the place El Jícaro. Pedro Moreno left the place and nothing more is known of his family.

Don Joaquín remained in Jícaro and became its leader, although at the end of the Mexican Revolution, in accordance with the agrarian reforms, Don Joaquín lost the greater part of his lands that covered a great expanse of the district. Consequently those lands were repartitioned into common land and settled by many farmers. Don Joaquín was left the lands at the center of Jícaro and the common-land settlers made small lots near the railway where they had put the sign with the name of Jícaro km 83, and so a small village began there. Don Joaquín gave land in the center for an elementary school, put up a store, and introduced the electric light. He died in the '70s, but his descendants still live in the village. In the '80s Clemente Moreno went to Jícaro to buy the house in which, he said, Jícaro was founded. And from him we learn the history of how his father had named El Jícaro.