Today we visited Quinta Luz, the Museo de la Revolution here in the City of Chihuahua. Quinta Luz is the mansion Pancho Villa used as his house and offices after his appointment as Provisional Governor of the State of Chihuahua. It is a huge mansion near the historic Centro and is filled with furniture, clothing, saddles and other itemsl used by the General. After Pancho’s death in 1923, Luz Corral de Villa, the only one of a hilariously long list of Villa’s “wives” determined by the Courts to be his legal spouse, was allowed to stay in the house to live out the remainder of her life. When she died in 1981 the Government re-acquired the Estate and turned it into a museum of Francesco “Pancho” Villa’s life.
The most bizarre item on display is the bullet riddled 1922 Dodge Touring Car that Villa was riding in when he was assassinated on July 20, 1923. As he drove away from his bank in nearby Parral that day, Villa was attacked by eight men firing rifles from the second floor of a nearby house. Five of the seven men in the car were killed, including the Generalissimo. One of the survivors remembered Villa’s last words as, “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something important!” It has never been determined who ordered his murder.
A little side note. In a restaurant on Highway 45 we saw a very imposing painting of Pancho Villa. Under it was the inscription: “Pancho Villa, The Only Man Brave Enough to Invade the USA!”
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