This capital, and most of the other noted towns in Durango, owe their existence to the mineral wealth of the neighborhood. Before the mines of Guarisamey were discovered the city of Durango was a mere village, or pueblo ranchero, containing, as late as 1783, no more than eight thousand inhabitants. But the exploration of the mines infused life, activity, and wealth into the population, and the State progressed rapidly as its resources were developed. The fine streets of the capital, its great plaza or square, its theatre, and all its public edifices were erected by Zambrano, who is said to have extracted upwards of thirty millions of dollars from his mines at Guarisamey and San Dimas. A mint has been established in the city, and, besides this, it possesses factories of cotton, glass and tobacco.
The towns of Villa del Nombre de Dios, with 7,000 inhabitants, San Juan del Rio with 12,000 and Cinco Señores de Nasas, are almost the only ones in the State unconnected with mines. The two first are supported chiefly by the sale of Mescal distilled from the maguey or aloe; and the last, by the extensive cotton plantations which have been already mentioned.
Besides these towns there are the Villa Feliz de Tamasula, north-west of Durango on the boundary of Sinaloa; Papasquiaro with 6,000 inhabitants; Guarisamey, a mining town, in a deep and warm valley, surrounded with steep mountains near 9,000 feet high, and containing about 4,000 people; La Villa de Mapimi, north of the Rio Nasas, on the borders of the Bolson de Mapimi, and east of the Cerro de la Cadena, with about 3,000 inhabitants; Cuencame; El Oro; and many other villages and towns, too numerous and too unimportant for separate notice, but which deserve recollection as indicating the tendency of this region to aggregate population. The State contained in 1833, 250,000 inhabitants, according to good authority, and it is probable that at present it does not number less than 300,000.