San José de Gracia, Mexico

History

San José de Gracia is considered to have originated in the early 19th century, when the brothers Francisco, Salvador, Antonio Rafael, and José Antonio Hernández Padilla divided the land among themselves, settling there with their families and laborers. While no formal founding document exists, one can say that the first inhabitants of what would become San José de Gracia began to settle around that time. The first chapel was built by 1822, and a permanent vicar served until 1867. Construction of the current San José parish church began on March 19, 1889, marking the start of a defined urban layout. It was officially established as a parish on May 15, 1910, with Fermín Padilla as its first parish priest. From the promulgation of the Constitution in 1917, which established the structure of the municipality as known today, the population of San José de Gracia remained within the municipality of Tepatitlán, with the category of Political Commissariat. San José remained so until 1939, when the council of Tepatitlán appointed the first Delegate, thus becoming a Political Delegation.

From the History section of San Jose de Gracia, Jalisco on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.