El Banco del Festival "Porfirio Díaz"

On 30 October 1897 President Porfirio Díaz, accompanied by some of his ministers, made a formal visit to Toluca, capital of the Estado de México.

One of the many pavilions erected for the occasion, that of Commerce, was dedicated to banking. It was built in the Renaissance style and inside had all the trappings of a bank, under the control of Rosa Ortiz de Graf, Rómula Sánchez Navarro de Ballina and María Rovalo de Villada (Concepción A. de Ferrat was unable to attend on the day due to a family crisis), the wives of leading members of the Banco del Estado de México. Visitors were given notes designed in the Escuela de Artes y Oficios, which had as tax stamps portraits of General Díaz and Villada, and the promise to pay in the Alameda of the city ten Hidalgos, on sight, to the bearer and in cash. They carried the signatures of María R. de Villada as Interventor, Rómula S. N. de Ballina as Cajero, Concepción A. de Ferrat as Consejero and Rosa O. de Graf as Gerente.

These notes were then exchanged for ten tokens of yellow metal the size of an English sovereign with an appropriate inscription^{La Voz de México, Tomo XXVIII, Núm. 284, 4 November 1897; El Xinantecatl, Toluca, Tomo I, Núm. 48, 28 November 1897}.