page_title: Valle de Bravo
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Valle de Bravo / The town / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Joaquin Arcadio Pagala house in Valle de Bravo, Mexico
context_page_description: Valle de Bravo is a town and municipality located in State of Mexico, Mexico. It is located on the shore of Lake Avándaro, approximately 156 km southwest of Mexico City and west of Toluca on highways 15, 134 or 1. It takes about 2 hours to drive from Mexico City to Valle de Bravo, making it a popular weekend getaway for the capital's affluent upper class.
  The town has several names during its history including San Francisco del Valle de Temascaltepec, Temascaltepec de indios, Villa del Valle, and San Francisco del Valle. The original names including Temascaltepec caused confusion with the nearby "Real de Minas de Temascaltepec", now Temascaltepec, so the county was known as "El Valle". The honorific "de Bravo" was added later to recognize Nicolás Bravo who fought at the Castle of Chapultepec during the Mexican–American War. Its Coat of arms includes the image of a temazcal in reference to its original name.
  In 1971, Valle de Bravo was known as typical city and magical town in 2005.
context_section_description: The first to arrive to the area were the Matlatzinca, who settled mostly in the present-day communities of Santa Maria Ahuacatlán, La Peña and Otumba. Between 1474 and 1479, the Aztec chief Axayacatl conquered the region, establishing what it would be the last addition to the Aztec Empire. After the destruction of Tenochtitlan by the Spanish, campaigns to subdue this area were carried out by Andrés de Tapia and Gonzalo de Sandoval, followed by evangelization by the Dominicans and the Augustinians. Around 1530, the Franciscan friar Gregorio Jiménez de la Cuenca founded the town as a congregation called "El Pino". Between 1607 and 1615, a Franciscan convent was established here, giving the town that grew up around it its original name of San Franciscano del Valle de Temascaltepec.
  The town suffered greatly during the Mexican War of Independence due to the monarchy's attempts to repress the rebellion there. Another short-lived rebellion occurred in 1834 when Carlos Guadalupe Tepixtoco Abad proclaimed his plan to re-establish the empire of Moctezuma.  However, most people considered the cause to be ridiculous and the movement quickly died out. The village gained town status in 1842 and city status in 1878. In the beginning of the 19th century, Professor G. Velázquez wrote the poem "Valle de Bravo en la poesía de Pagaza", describing the region's beauty. The town also saw incursions by Zapatistas during the Mexican Revolution.
  In the 20th century, the geographic configuration of the landscape changed. In 1937, the Federal Commission on Electricity began plans for an electrical plant called Ixtapantongo, later called the "Miguel Alemán" hydroelectric system. Construction began in 1938 and ended in 1947 ending with a Villa Victoria Dam that flooded 2,900 hectares, creating the current reservoir which extends all the way to the state of Michoacán. The electrical plant generates 458,775 kilowatts and forms a part of the water system supplying Mexico City. The town is situated on a small plateau at the foot of several hills at the edge of this lake. During the 1960s the place became world-famous for its auto racing event Circuito Avandaro which was suspended in 1969 after pilot Moisés Solana's fatal accident. On September 11–12, 1971, Valle de Bravo became the Mexican Woodstock as a large gathering of between 200,000 and 300,000 hippies from all over the country, Central and North America arrived in town to take part in the massive Festival de rock y ruedas Avandaro held in the hamlet of Tenantongo. As of 2005 it had a population of 22,166.
  The dam is actually a series of dams named Valle, Tilostoc, Colorines, Ixtapantongo and the newest at Santo Tomás de los Plátanos. With the creation of the lake came the development of exclusive resort facilities such as hotels, golf clubs, country cabins, sailing clubs and a myriad of restaurants.
caption: House of Joaquin Arcadio Pagaza
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D60", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2010:06:26 15:09:46", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "29048", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9423", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:06:26 15:09:46", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:06:26 15:09:46", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3872", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "28908", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}