[citation needed] The town of Tepetongo, located in the municipality of the same namesake, was founded several years after Jerez de Garcia Salinas (16th century AD) was established for a second time, a few kilometers down the road.
The town and its surroundings were frequent routes and stopovers for the various revolutionary groups during the Mexican Revolution, and left much of an imprint on its history much like the larger conflicts that took place in the capital of the state itself of Zacatecas.
Nearly every village has at least one well kept chapel, and the town itself has a large Gothic church in which ceremonies are held year round, but the largest festivities take place around the holiday of San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist) on June 24.
The festival draws in people from surrounding villages and towns (Huejucar, Jerez), and more recently from expatriates living abroad mostly in the U.S., but Europe as well and their children and grandchildren.
The festival itself is marked by a mass, reenactments, religious processions during the day, rodeo events, a fair, and a general nightclub/bar atmosphere and people watching later in the night, albeit with men (and increasingly women) roaming the streets on horseback all coming to a climax with its large tower of fireworks (known as polvoras, and castillos) display, rain notwithstanding every few years.