La Maestranza, Industrial building in Pachuca, Mexico.
La Maestranza is an abandoned industrial complex in Pachuca, Hidalgo, made up of workshops, a general warehouse and a locomotive service shed with its inspection pit. The 1920 warehouse had cranes, elevators and shelving, a fire-protected lubricant store, underground gasoline and chapopote tanks, a nail factory, a well and an elevated water tank. The grounds held railway tracks for unloading and storage.
The United States Smelting Refining and Mining Company bought the land in 1906, and in 1912 moved the workshops and general warehouse there from Real del Monte. A locomotive service shed with a pit was added in 1913, and the general warehouse building followed in 1920. The complex closed in 1987 and was sold to private owners by government decree on 5 May 2003.
The site took its name La Maestranza from its role as a training center where master craftspeople, carpenters, and blacksmiths passed on their skills. This purpose shaped how the complex was understood as a place of skilled work.
The complex was closed in 1987 and later sold to private owners, so it is not an open museum; access depends on the current owner and the site has been fenced off during past development disputes. It stands near the old Mexican Railway station, now the Centro Cultural del Ferrocarril, and Plaza Juárez, which helps orientation. Expect overgrown grounds, graffiti and structural damage rather than maintained paths.
In 1924 the company received ten Mack Trucks model 1917 lorries that had been used in World War I. Painted green, they carried Maestranza materials through Pachuca's streets, and locals nicknamed them "Cotorras" (parrots) after the look of their fronts.
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