Popotla station

Neighbouring stations

• 2Line 2Cuitláhuac ← Popotla → Colegio Militar

The story behind the icon

The station silhouette is the ahuehuete tree.

Popotla is an old town on the causeway of Tenochtitlan, or Tlacopan. According to legend, in the defeat of the Spaniards Cortés wept beside an ahuehuete, a tree that was the only witness to his weeping and that has been known ever since as the tree of the Sad Night.

It was preserved for many years as a National Monument, but a fire destroyed it.

The Spaniards were received with great shows of friendship by Moctezuma, which Cortés never repaid. On 20 June 1520 he ordered the murder of all the Aztec nobles they held prisoner. That night the Spaniards began their retreat, trying to do so as stealthily as possible; they then evacuated the city and fled along the Tlacopan causeway (today the Calzada México-Tacuba).

A great battle began and the Aztecs defeated Cortés, who in his flight, on reaching Popotla, was overcome by exhaustion. Seeing a great leafy ahuehuete, he sat down to try to recover, but the pain and anguish of defeat made him weep inconsolably.