Alhóndiga de Granaditas (Museo Regional de Guanajuato)

Alhóndiga de Granaditas, on the corner of Mendizábal and 28 de Septiembre in Guanajuato City, began as a colonial grain and seed warehouse completed in 1809 and became the site of one of the first major battles of the Mexican War of Independence a year later, when insurgent forces led by Miguel Hidalgo besieged Spanish loyalists sheltering inside. Local miner Juan José de los Reyes Martínez, known as El Pípila, is credited with strapping a stone slab to his back for protection and crawling to the heavy wooden doors to set them alight, allowing insurgents to storm the building. The building now houses the Museo Regional de Guanajuato, whose permanent collection spans the region's pre-Hispanic archaeology, colonial-era mining history, and the independence movement itself, including large historical murals painted across the stairwells depicting the 1810 siege and its aftermath. Exhibits are arranged around a central courtyard on two levels, with rooms organized chronologically from pre-Columbian artifacts through the colonial silver economy to 19th- and 20th-century regional history. A thorough visit takes one to one and a half hours, and the murals lining the main stairwell are best viewed from the courtyard looking up, where their full scale is visible. The building's iron rings, still mounted on the exterior walls from its warehouse days, mark where the severed heads of Hidalgo and three other independence leaders were displayed for a decade after their execution, a detail the museum's history rooms address directly. Weekday mornings shortly after the 10AM opening are quietest; the museum is closed Mondays.