As of December 2006 the state government is working to return this port to the splendor of centuries past through the development of projects focused on tourism as declared then-governor Patricio Patron Laviada.

The ancient groups that inhabited the coasts of the Yucatán peninsula in pre-Hispanic times, were fundamentally related to the villages and the great Mayan ceremonial centers of the inland.

In an ancient Mayan document known as the Calkiní Codex the migration of the Canul brothers is narrated and presented in a description of the limits of the Maya province of Lord Ah-Canul of the north, of which Sisal was a part and the origins are mentioned of this port.

The oldest quote points out that the Maya priest Ah-Kin Canul had four boats here in which they fished their slaves and probably served for trade with other indigenous populations of the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean Sea.

This happened during the late post-classic period (1250-1517), when the coasts began to populate, allowing to stand out as one of the main maritime trade ports of the Mayan region.

Sisal and other coastal sites in northeastern Yucatán formed parts of the long-distance exchange networks that Chichén Itzá established with the Gulf of Mexico.

Here cotton, dye stick, tobacco and scarlet were sold, as well as the Yucatecan henequen that was exported from this port, which is why the agave fiber is called sisal or sisalana in other latitudes.

Sisal was connected to Mérida by a road of 53 km finished in 1564, but the swamp made the route difficult, unlike Campeche, which finally dominated the communication to the sea.

In any case, due to its economic impotence, Sisal was declared a town in 1840, being the seat of the City Council that controlled the Yucatán coast from Celestún to Isla Mujeres.

Mérida-Sisal was built by Diego de Quijada in the middle of the 18th century, making clear the need that at that time had to enable a port closer to Mérida than that of Campeche, for the export of products from the north of the Peninsula.

Another commemorative work was on the facade of the customs building, where a marble tombstone was inscribed with the inscription: "The employees of Hacienda de Sisal, to the pleasant memory of the happy arrival to the peninsula of its sovereign the Empress Carlota Amalia, on November 22, 1865".