attacked the city in 1857 but where dislodge shortly thereafter by Liberal Angel Albino Corzo. The last of French forces were expelled from the city in 1864. The state government was moved from San Cristobal to Tuxtla for good in 1892 by the Liberal government. There was a failed attempt in 1911 by Conservatives in San Crist�bal and neighboring San Juan Chamula to force the capital to return.
In 1915, the state went to the municipality system with San Crist�bal becoming a municipality. Originally, it had jurisdiction over communities such as San Lucas, Zinacant�n, San Felipe Ecatepec, Tenejapa, San Miguel Mitontic, Huixtan and Chanal, but these would later separate to become municipalities in their own right. In the 20th century, the outskirts of the city become filled with open pit mines for gravel and sand. There was even one opened on a hill in the San Diego and La Florecilla neighborhoods, near the historic center called Salsipuedes. These prompted environmental and local community organizations to protest stating that the valley is a closed water basin and the mining negatively affects potable water supplies. Salsipuedes was closed in the 2000s.
The city was declared a national historic monument in 1974.
San Cristobal became the center of political activism with the election of Samuel Ruiz as bishop of Chiapas in 1960. In the 1960s and 1970s, the traditional Catholic Church was losing indigenous adherents to Protestant and other Christian groups. To counter this, Ruiz supported and worked with Marist priests and nuns following an ideology called liberation theology. In 1974, he organized a state wide �Indian Congress� with representatives from the Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal and Ch'ol peoples from 327 communities as well as Marists and the Maoist People�s Union. This congress was the first of its kind with the goal of uniting the indigenous peoples politically. These efforts were also supported by leftist organizations from outside Mexico,
