On 6 July 1686, Agustín Echeverz y Zuvízar, governor of the
Nuevo Reino de León, camped in what is now Reynosa during an exploratory expedition. In December 1748, an expedition led by
José de Escandón y Helguera left from
Querétaro, planning to establish 14 villages; the caravan consisted of 1500 colonists and 755 soldiers. On 14 March 1749, was founded (in its original location) the
Villa de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Reynosa, by the captain Carlos Cantú on behalf of Escandón, being as well in political and military command. There were 279 pioneer residents in the charge of Friar Agustín Fragoso. The city was named
Reynosa after
Reinosa, birthplace of the viceroy
Juan Francisco de Güemes y Horcasitas. In August 1750, the first flood was documented in the village. In April 1757, Reynosa had it first political conflict, when Escandón dismissed Carlos Cantú as the mayor of the village, replacing him by Pedro de Estrada, second mayor of Reynosa. On 9 July 1757, arrives to the village the captain José Tineda y Cuervo and the engineer Agustín López, both viceroyalty inspectors, to do a population census according to which Reynosa had 280 inhabitants. As a result of the census, they obtained authorization from the King of Spain to move the village to a placed named Santa María de las Lajas, which was not done because Escandón didn't consider the river a flooding risk anymore. In September 1800, an immense flood occurred. The village was inundated and the villagers used canoes and rafts to arrive to the hills of
El Morrillo. In 1802, the village moved to its current location and the new census showed 1631 inhabitants. In 1810, the building of the old church
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe began, by the parish priest Don José Cárdenas; it was finished in 1815 by Don Lorenzo Treviño. In 1846, Reynosa was invaded by the American army during the
Mexican-American war. On 10 May 1910, General
Lucio Blanco with the
constitutional army took Reynosa during the
Mexican revolution. On 24 November 1926, Reynosa became a city.
Current Reynosa extends across 3,156.34 sq kilometers (1218.66 sq. miles), representing 3.7 per cent of the
Tamaulipas territory. Today it is the location of several satellite U.S. companies doing business to take advantage of low labor rates and industry incentives. On 18 September 2012, an explosion at the nearby
Pemex gas plant killed 30 and injured 46 people. Pemex Director Juan Jose Suarez said that there was "no evidence that it was a deliberate incident, or some kind of attack". In 2017, it was described as a major hotspot in the
Mexican drug war, as a result of the internecine wars between the
Gulf and
Los Zetas drugs cartels. Reynosa also has a
Plaza Sendero. ==Geography==