Mercado González Ortega

The Mercado González Ortega opened in 1889 as the city's main covered food market, built with French-influenced ironwork set into local pink cantera stone, a combination that gave nineteenth-century Zacatecas one of its more architecturally ambitious civic buildings. A major fire in 1897 damaged the original three-story structure, and it was rebuilt by 1902; the market took its present name in 1921, honoring General Jesús González Ortega, a Reform-era military and political figure from the state. As food retail in the city shifted to other markets over the twentieth century, the building was converted into a multi-level shopping arcade, now filled with stalls selling silver jewelry, regional textiles, leather goods, candied fruit, mezcal and Zacatecas wine, arranged beneath the original iron trusses and skylights on a sloped site that steps down from Avenida Hidalgo toward the aqueduct below. A visit runs 30 to 45 minutes for browsing, longer for those shopping for silver or wine. It sits at the center of downtown, within a few minutes' walk of the cathedral, Templo de Santo Domingo and Jardín Independencia.