The Rosales region, formed by the middle and lower reaches of the
San Pedro River, was evangelized during the seventeenth century by
Franciscans who settled among the indigenous
Conchos and founded the
Misión de San Pedro de Conchos in the mid-17th century. In 1714, the Franciscans planted a new mission with the name of
Santa Cruz de Tapacolmes on the eastern side of the Río San Pedro and west of what is today the city of
Delicias. The mission remained at that place until 1753, when it was relocated to its current place on the western side of the Río San Pedro, to improve defensibility from native attacks. The grounds where the new settlement was founded were donated by Sergeant Major
Juan Antonio Trasviña y Retes and
Nueva Vizcaya governor
Manuel de San Juan y Santa Cruz. The settlement received the epithet of
Tapacolmes by the Indians that Trasviña y Retes brought from the
Ojinaga region to populate the settlement. Santa Cruz de Tapacolmes became an important population center of the region. It was first a subdivision of the township of
Chihuahua. In 1820, with the adoption of the
Constitution of Cadiz, it was designated the seat of the new
Municipalidad de Tapacolmes and a town hall was constructed. On July 12, 1831, a decree of the
Congress of Chihuahua gave it the status of
Villa and the town and municipality was renamed
Santa Cruz de Rosales in honor of the insurgent revolutionary hero
Víctor Rosales. The name was soon simplified by the locals to
Rosales. In 1848, after the signing of the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February, the state of
Chihuahua was again invaded by the US army under
General Sterling Price, claiming an ongoing state of war between the two countries and rejecting the explanations of Chihuahua Governor
Ángel Trías Álvarez, who had participated in signing the peace treaty and who confronted Price in his march to Chihuahua. Trias then retreated with his government to Rosales, where on March 16, 1848, Price's forces attacked the Mexican garrison under what has come to be known as the
Battle of Santa Cruz de Rosales. The Mexicans resisted under the command of Trías until they were exhausted, at which point they had to surrender. After Price's superiors in the US learned of the action, Price was recalled back to El Paso with his forces and reprimanded for his insubordinate and unauthorized behavior. In 1862, on his retreat to the north of Mexico in the face of the
invasion of Mexico by the French forces of Napoleon III, President
Benito Juárez arrived at Rosales, who was received with a banquet and dance in his honor. During the celebration, Juárez agreed to dance to the second song played during the festivities, a polka called "La Escobita" which was to his great liking. When he later moved to the city of
Chihuahua, he had chance to hear the piece again but, as he did not know its name, he called the song
La Segunda de Rosales, a name that acquired popular roots and how it is still known to this day. Towards the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the importance of Rosales in the region declined to the benefit of the nearby
Villa of Meoqui, where the central railway passed through. But in the second half of the 20th century, the region received a great boost. In the 1940s, the federal government built the Francisco I. Madero Dam, better known as the Las Vírgenes Dam, just five kilometers upstream from Rosales and which, together with other flood control structures recently built, created
Irrigation District 05, today one of the most productive agricultural zones in the state of Chihuahua. (The
Municipality of Delicias, formed in 1935 from parts of the Santa Cruz de Rosales and the Meoqui municipalities, became the greatest beneficiary of this water project.) On January 22, 1992, a new decree of the
Congress of Chihuahua restored the original name of
Santa Cruz de Rosales to the community. ==Geography==