The first Spanish contact with these people must have been in 1530 when Pedro Almíndez Chirino went through the Valley of Tlaltenango on a northbound expedition.
In what is now Tlaltenango, Indians showed him rocks containing silver and, on September 8, 1546, he found his way to the origin of the rocks on the Cerro de la Bufa at Zacatecas.
In the early 17th century, the town was under the jurisdiccion of neighboring Tlaltenango and was primarily inhabited by indigenous people, though a few Spanish families had begun to settle in the area with the end of the Chichimeca War.
The municipality is bordered on the north by the municipalities of Tabasco and General Joaquin Amaro, on the east by the municipality of Calvillo, Aguascalientes, on the south by the municipalities of Jalpa and on the west by the municipality of Tlaltenango De Sanchez Roman.
The town of Tlaltenango was entrusted to Toribio de Bolaños, Tepechitlán to Pedro de Bobadilla, a soldier of Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, and El Teúl was an encomineda of Juan Delgado.