This house was owned by Don Antonio Salanueva, book binder by trade and a lay brother of the Third Order of St. Francis. This house is characteristic of a Oaxacan home in the 17th century, with one story, two patios, and low adobe wall. Don Benito Juárez García lived here from 1818 to 1828, who as a child, at the age of twelve came in search of his sister Josefa, who worked as a maid for the Maza family. He was welcomed in by Don Antonio Salanueva who adopted him, sponsored it, provided him with resources for education, taught him his first letters and helped him to enter the Seminary of the Holy Cross and later the Science and Arts Institute of the state, where he studied a career as a lawyer, to continue his upward trajectory to become President of Mexico.
In the year 1906, when they celebrated the centenary of the birth of this meritorious Mexican, the then governor, Don Emilio Pimentel, on behalf of the state purchased the house in order to gather there items that belonged to Juárez. The house was converted into a museum and opened its doors in 1933, serving since then to accommodate some of the documents and archives containing the history of Juarez, illustrate his historic actions, and exhibit objects and documents from the War for Independence, the Reform, and the French intervention. The furniture in the house is not original, but manages to recreate the atmosphere of those years when Benito Juarez lived here.
In 1974 the first work was conducted to rehabilitate the house because of the bad state it was in as well as to increase its value. The doors were closed in 1991 and it wasn’t reopened until March 21, 1996 when the museum was inaugurated again. The museum now stores microfilm and about 200 digital documents, in addition to its showrooms.

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