I will now tell you who some merchants from Saltillo were and what they were selling in the year of the Lord 1899.
They sold hats don martin tamayo and the widow of Palafox.
Don Francisco Balderas He had a stationery and stationery store in “The Old Frontier Pearl.”
Don Juan Woessnerdon Gabriel Flores y don Zeferino Garza they traded in wood.
Don Juan Talamas y don Ramon Mellado He owned haberdashery.
They sold furniture Clemente Sieberdon Manuel Zepeda y don Juan Hayes.
Don Adolfo Deutz and Messrs. Machin and Dillon, who put up the first water and sewer system in the city, sold and installed plumbing fixtures.
They made or sold rebozos, a garment then very frequently used, and always required of the women of the town, the gentlemen Feliciano Groues, Antonio Espinosa, Juan Morales, Gabriel Cardenas, Valentine Mark y Ramon Baez.
They were the watchmakers establishment mainly of Italians. To them our city owes commercial houses of great prestige and noble tradition. The surname De Nigris is synonymous with seriousness in this city, both in the watchmaking and jewelery industries. Don Sunday of Nigris He founded his negotiation in the 3rd. Allende street, and in that house other businesses have their origin that fortunately for the people of Saltilla still exist in our city, and with which many of our memories are linked.
Other well-known watchmakers and jewelers in old Saltillo were Don Hipolitio Carmonadon Liborio BonelliMr. Leavati, Mr. Augusto Nicklaus (who was the teacher of a whole generation of watchmakers) and don Vicente Nocedal.
They had shoe stores in 1900 don Francisco T. Rodríguez, founder and patriarch of one of the oldest and most prestigious businesses in Saltillo. Also owners of shoe stores were Don Juan Aguileradon Jose Cabellodon romulo moralesdon Evaristo M. Aguirredon louis rodriguez (a kind old man who, in his shoe store on calle de Aldama, still in the fifties, made delicate leather goods that more than craftsmanship were true objects of art); Don Tiburcio Santisdon Amauri A. Sepúlveda y don Jerome Siller.
Shoe stores and shoemakers have had very deep roots in Saltillo. Cobbler shoemaker was the famous “Caifas”, a great fan of bullfighting, who had a strong sign on the door of his workshop: “I don’t even wear heels on bullfighting afternoons, and I pay because they don’t occupy me.” Caifas was the most famous shouter in Saltillo, a city that has always had them in abundance and more than good. When the Saltillo bullfighting club went to the bullfights in Monterrey and entered the bullring, the brave Monterrey baton shouted between aggressive and buzzing:
-They have arrived, children of the Holy Christ!
And “El Caifas” answered with his enormous voice:
– Even sons of a macho, not like you, sons of the Virgin of the Oak!
And he added, as the roar of laughter had died down:
-Here we come, to ask for the hand of the Immaculate Conception for the Patron.
On his lips those excesses did not sound like heretical blasphemy, but rather healthy mischief full of the strongest and purest flavor of the people.