TAXCO, Guerrero, Mexico — With apologies to Bogart and John Huston, the real treasure of the Sierra Madre is found clinging handsomely to a one-time mountain of silver less than a two-hour drive from Mexico City via inexpensive modern toll roads.
Stunning to the eye for its Mediterranean-inspired architecture of uniformly whitewashed stucco with red ceramic tile roofs, Taxco offers postcard-picturesque views from every vantage. Old World tradition and modern sensibilities combine along narrow cobblestone streets of this Mexican jewel of Spanish colonialism to produce an intoxicating mix of frenzy and charm.
Longevity rarely follows a script. Had this testimonial to man's enterprise and greed traced the familiar boom-bust cycle of innumerable hard-rock mining towns, Taxco would have slipped into either obscurity or parody long ago.
While frontier icons such as Tombstone, Ariz., Deadwood, S.D., or Virginia City, Nev., have lapsed into caricatures of themselves — trading exclusively on their past, Taxco has survived — even thrived — on pluck, luck and never straying too far from its silver heritage. For nearly five centuries it has stubbornly refused becoming a historical asterisk.
Today, this still-vibrant commercial center of 90,000 residents benefits from a forward-thinking decision by the Mexican government in 1928 to declare all of Taxco a "Colonial Monument." The move linked Taxco's future to its storied past and served to promote preservation ahead of wanton development.
Taxco dates to the Aztecs, but its modern roots go back to the Conquistadors, who under the command of Hernando Cortez arrived searching for tin to make bronze for casting cannons. Instead of tin, Taxco's mountains yielded a lucrative consolation — silver — in sufficient amounts to lure fortune-seekers to the region for the next two centuries.
Among those seeking his New World destiny was 17-year-old Joseph de la Borda, who arrived in Taxco in 1716. Young Borda was following in the footsteps of an older miner brother when he made a strike for the ages. A favorite legend actually credits the horse Borda was riding with making the find after scraping the ground with a hoof to reveal a mother lode surface vein of silver.
Whether the horse received a second bag of oats at feeding isn't known. But the strike vaulted both rider and Taxco onto the A list of 18th century affluence. Over the years, Borda's mines produced so much silver that he became one of Europe's most wealthy men, renowned for his generosity and faith as expressed in the mantra commonly attributed to him: "God has given to Borda and Borda gives to God."
An enduring symbol of Borda's gratitude not only to his maker but to Taxco itself is the magnificent Santa Prisca Church, which he commissioned and solely financed. Construction on the lavish edifice began in 1751 and was completed in 1758. For a period of time it was presided over by his son, Manuel, who served 18 years as Taxco parish priest.
Today the church, built from native pink-colored sandstone and featuring an ornate baroque architectural style, remains the focal point of the central Borda Zocalo (town square).
Inside Santa Prisca, extensive gold leaf covers finely carved images of saints and angels interspersed with paintings by Vera Cruz master Miguel Cabrera.
Included among Cabrera's Santa Prisca works are two rare depictions: one of a pregnant Virgin Mary and the other of the circumcision of baby Jesus. Church docents will be happy to point them out.
Also worth visiting is Casa Borda, which sits diagonally across from the Santa Prisca Church on the plaza's north side. Built for the elder Borda's son in 1759, Casa Borda is now home to the Guerrero State Cultural Center and Taxco's cultural museum, which includes exhibits of period dress, crafts, paintings and engravings.
Like most mining towns, Taxco is built up instead of out, creating a twisting labyrinth of avenues that often make San Francisco's famed curves of Lombard Street seem the Autobahn by comparison. Trucks and taxis aggressively vie with cars and carts for operating space on avenues better suited for Matchbox or Tonka vehicles than full-size offerings from Germany, Japan and Detroit. Darting motorcycles and mopeds negotiate swarming pedestrians on their own missions of equal urgency.
Highway 95 — the main route into and out of Taxco — snakes along one of Taxco's rare flat stretches demarcating lower (and newer) Taxco with the upper historical district. During rush hour it becomes so congested that traffic police are dispatched to major intersections to prevent complete gridlock.
With the arrival of dusk, Taxco lurches into sensory overload. A commotion of sights and sounds, intensified by artifical lighting, reaches a crescendo as additional commuters spill onto already clogged streets. It appears to be bedlam with a chaos chaser.
Such wasn't the case 70 years ago. Although mining continues in and around Taxco (some original Borda mines are still being worked), silver had largely played out by the 1930s and Taxco was badly in need of a makeover.
Enter American expatriate William Spratling, an associate professor of architecture at Tulane University, who triggered a second Taxco bonanza in the precious metal.
At Spratling's behest, Mexican goldsmiths began producing unique Mesoamerican designs in silver, which found eager buyers in Mexico, the United States and Europe. Soon Spratling's brainchild evolved into an apprentice program for silversmiths that reintroduced Taxco silver to the world.
Spratling's legacy lives on today as upward of 200 proprietary silver designers and artisans ply their craft across the city selling to tourists, jewelry dealers and wholesalers from galleries and retail shops. As many as 700 other sellers and manufacturers — of all sizes — sell mass-market silver designs, much of it sold by weight.
No visit to Mexico's silver capital is complete without indulging your inner shopper by browsing multiple shops and galleries. Just remember to leave your inner-bargainer behind as deals on Taxco silver wares often are as difficult to find as level ground.
When asked to attribute his longevity, legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne once explained, "By all accounts I should be dead." Likewise Taxco's long-anticipated epitaph remains on hold. Given recent spikes in precious metals prices, including silver, there may soon be calls for a silver mining encore.
E-mail: chuck@desnews.com