Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LEÓN
POP 201,100 / ELEV 110M
Intensely political, buzzing with energy and, at times, drop-dead gorgeous (in a crumbling,
colonial kind of way), León is what Managua should be - a city of awe-inspiring churches,
fabulous art collections, stunning streetscapes, cosmopolitan eateries, fiery intellectualism,
and all-week, walk-everywhere, happening nightlife. Many people fall in love with
Granada, but most of them leave their heart in León.
History
Originally located on the slopes of Volcán Momotombo, León committed some of the
Spanish conquest's cruelest excesses; even other conquistadors suggested that León's pun-
ishment was divine retribution. When the mighty volcano reduced León to rubble in 1610,
the city was moved here, saint by saint, next to the existing indigenous capital of Subtiava.
The reprisals did not end there. Eager to win the civil war with Granada, which had,
since independence, been contesting the colonial capital's continuing leadership role, in
1853 León invited US mercenary William Walker to the fight. After the Tennessean de-
clared himself president (and Nicaragua a US slave state), he was executed; the nation's
capital was moved to Managua, and Granada's Conservatives ran the country for the next
three decades.
Finally, in 1956, Anastasio Somoza García (the original dictator) was assassinated in
León by Rigoberto López, a poet in a waiter's clothing. The ruling family never forgot, and
when the revolution came, their wrath fell on this city in a hail of bullets and bombs, the
scars of which have still not been erased.
León has remained proudly Liberal, even a bit aloof, through it all, a Sandinista strong-
hold and political power player that has never once doubted its grand destiny.
