Juanacatlán Falls

Juanacatlán Falls, on the Santiago River in Jalisco, was once celebrated as the Niagara of Mexico and became the first Mexican landscape shown on a postage stamp in 1899. At the start of the twentieth century, the river powered electricity generation for Guadalajara and a nearby cotton and woolen mill. Over time, especially after NAFTA took effect in 1994, industrial expansion turned the Santiago corridor into a major industrial zone, and waste discharged into the river helped reduce the falls to a polluted trickle. Contamination was linked to severe illnesses in nearby communities, making the falls a powerful symbol of the Santiago River’s environmental decline.

Jalisco · Mexico