the period of rapid development began with the early '90s. At the outbreak of the revolution there were 324 factories reported as manufacturing cotton and wool textiles. The most important of the cotton mills were those of the Compañía Industrial de Orizaba, operating the famous Rio Blanco mill, founded in 1892, and others at Cocolapan, San Lorenzo, and Cerritos; that of the Compañía Industrial Veracruzana, founded in 1898, known as the Santa Rosa mill, at Orizaba; that of the Compañía Industrial de Atlixco, near Atlixco, and those of the Compañía Industrial de San Antonio Abad, in San Antonio Abad, Miraflores, and Colemena. The capital in these companies is predominantly French.
The most important woolen mill was the Fabrica de Tejidos de Lana de San Idelfonso in Tlalnepantla. The most important jute factories are the British owned Santa Gertrudis in Orizaba, and the Aurora in Cuatitlan in the State of Mexico.[1]
Factories producing sugar, candy, and chocolate numbered over 2,196 in 1912. Most of them were small. Hidalgo led the list in number of establishments with over a fifth of the total. The other states that ranked high were in order Jalisco, Nuevo Leon, Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, and Puebla.'[2]
Though Mexico has a comparatively high production of sugar, export has not yet come to be important. A very important by-product of the sugar factories of Mexico is rum, which is also chiefly manufactured for
