Victoriano Huerta

Huerta's road to power began in a small Jalisco town. Born in Colotlán in 1854 to a mestizo father and a Huichol mother, he volunteered at fifteen as secretary to Gen. Donato Guerra, who arranged his entry into the military college at Chapultepec in 1872, with help from President Benito Juárez. Commissioned an engineer in 1877, he spent years mapping for Porfirio Díaz's general staff and later fought rebellions in Guerrero and among the Yaqui in Sonora.

What the plaque says

Victoriano Huerta Commander of federal forces during the Mexican Revolution, Victoriano Huerta (b. 1854) became President of Mexico in 1913, after the arrest and before the assassination of Francisco Madero. Huerta resigned a year later and went into exile. In 1915, U.S. agents arrested him in Newman, New Mexico, where he was meeting fellow revolutionary Pascual Orozco. For violating U.S. neutrality laws, Huerta was taken to Fort Bliss and confined. Huerta's health deteriorated before he could stand trial, and authorities released him to his El Paso home on West Yandell Street. In January 1916, Huerta died and was buried in Concordia Cemetery before being reinterred in Evergreen Cemetery. He is the only former foreign president buried in El Paso. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chamizal National Memorial — 0.9 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 2.2 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 8.8 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 9.6 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.

More markers nearby

• Urbici Soler — steps away
• Henry C. Trost — steps away
• Franklin Canal — 0.4 mi
• James H. White — 0.5 mi