Gateway to the Copper Canyon — the Sinaloan Pacific coast city where El Chepe railway departs through the Sierra Madre's dramatic Barrancas del Cobre, sugar cane fields stretch to the Sea of Cortez, and the ferry to Baja California crosses from the port of Topolobampo
Los Mochis is a prosperous agricultural city in northern Sinaloa — the Pacific-coast starting point for one of the world's great railway journeys: the Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacífico (El Chepe Express), which climbs 2,400 m from sea level through 37 bridges and 86 tunnels to reach the rim of the Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon) — a system of canyons four times the volume of the Grand Canyon — before descending to Chihuahua city. The journey (Los Mochis to Creel, 12 hours) is the primary reason to visit Los Mochis; the city itself is a functional transit hub with good hotels and a lively…
The Los Mochis area was inhabited by the Yoreme (Mayo) people — a Yuto-Aztecan Indigenous people closely related to the Yaqui — before Spanish colonisation. The Yoreme successfully resisted Spanish missionary control far longer than most Indigenous peoples of Sinaloa; their ceremonial deer dance (Danza del Venado) is still performed at their Easter ceremonies. The modern city of Los Mochis was founded relatively recently: in 1903 by American Benjamin Johnston, who established the Los Mochis Sugar Company and laid out the city grid around his sugar refinery. Johnston brought workers from the U…