Explore The northwest and Copper Canyon
The modern agricultural centre of Los Mochis is a relatively new creation by Mexican standards, its origins going back to the establishment of a utopian colony on Topolobampo Bay in 1881, led by American socialist Albert Kimsey Owen. The colony was abandoned in the early 1900s, and Los Mochis really owes its existence to the Sinaloa Sugar Company, a US-owned monolith that was established by Benjamin Johnston in the 1890s (the founder and his wife are commemorated with reverential portraits in the lobby of Hotel Santa Anita). The town grew up around the extensive company works, and today it’s a broad-streeted, prosperous, but rather dull place with few attractions, notable only as a major crossing point for road, rail and ferry, and above all the western terminus of the incomparable Copper Canyon railway. If you’re planning to take the ferry or train you’ll have little choice but to stay at least one night here – don’t expect much excitement. The sweltering grid of streets that makes up Los Mochis has no real focus, but what there is of a town centre is on Hidalgo and Obregón, between Allende and Leyva.
