The Museo Regional del Valle del Fuerte is Los Mochis's main local history museum, covering the pre-Columbian cultures of the Sinaloa lowlands, the colonial period, and the sugar industry that built the modern city. The pre-Hispanic collections are the most interesting: the Cahita-speaking peoples of the region — the Yaqui, Mayo, and Tehueco — had complex societies that survived sustained Spanish contact in ways that many groups did not.
The sugar industry section explains how Benjamin Johnston, an American entrepreneur, essentially founded Los Mochis in the early twentieth century by establishing a sugar cane operation in what was then marshland. The city's gridded streets and some of its older buildings date from that period. The museum is small but thoughtfully arranged and makes a useful one-hour stop before or after the Chepe journey.