Touristic Sites
Old Customs Building

Another obligatory place to visit while in Tampico is the Old Customs Building which houses the tourism offices and the museum “Tampico 1829, a store to tell”.

This beautiful building that used to house Tampico’s Customs is one of oldest in the city. It was built over an small island that had the Pánuco River on one side and the Tamesí river on the other side which permitted to serve big ships as well as small ones and boats. A bridge joined the island with the commercial zone of the city until the side of the Tamesí River was filled in order to build the railroad.


Its design was chosen personally by Don Porfirio Díaz who ordered the plans to an English company. Its assembly began in 1896 and was inaugurated by General Díaz on October 16th, 1902.

Following a clear English style, this building was built with imported materials that included prefrabricated elements made from molten iron with bricks brought from England brought as ballast by ship. Its polished granite floors with embedded bronze form geometric figures. Its windows and doors as well as some iron rails were imported from Louisiana, USA. The quarry in the archs comes from the Huasteca. From its corridors you can admire the Pánuco River and the ships in the dock

1829 ExhibitionShows elements and images of the historic event, that proclaimed the culmination of the Mexican Independence movement... >>