Los Tres Juanes Museum

At the Centro Cívico Cultural there’s a museum that combines pre-Hispanic artifacts found in the region with Tetela’s most prized objects—the ones that recall the town’s role in the Battle of Puebla, when the Second French Intervention gave Mexico a bunch of heroes and a date to remember: May 5, 1862. Thus, in the first gallery you’ll see vessels, mortar handles, arrowheads, metates (grindstones), and fragments of figurines pertaining to the time before the Spanish Conquest.

In order not to forget the events of the bellicose 19th century, nor the liberal tendency that marked the town in those times, the second gallery displays a canon used during the war, a pair of flags found on the battlefield, and an image of Melchor Ocampo to who Tetela now owes its name. Perhaps the museum’s greatest treasure, however, is the portraits of  “Los Tres Juanes” (literally translated as The Three Juans): Juan Crisóstomo Bonilla, Juan Nepomuceno Méndez, and Juan Francisco Lucas (the first two were Tetela natives, the latter was born in Zacapoaxtla), the liberal leaders who fought against the French at the head of the Sixth Battalion of the National Guard of the State of Puebla and who would later, in 1867, join the Plan de Tuxtepec launched by President Porfirio Díaz.

The museum collection also shows some of the tools used in the olden days in the nearby mines and has a scale reproduction of a forge. The townspeople used to spend much of their time forging metals, but little by little the activity has fallen in disuse. A couple of traditional suits and palm and wood handicrafts round out the experience.