the beginning of the twentieth century. Mexico appealed to American tourists seeking an "exotic" holiday. It was promoted in 1890 as the "Egypt of the New World." With the 1910 centennial of Mexican independence, the government undertook an excavation and reconstruction of the Pyramid of the Sun at the huge archeological site of Teotihuacan, near Mexico City. A railway line was constructed from the capital to the site, bringing scholars from the 1910 meeting of the International Congress of Americanists. In addition, the National Museum of Anthropology was refurbished in advance of the celebrations, in anticipation of tourists. Mexico was a beneficiary of the increasing tourism of Europeans and Americans to distant lands. In Mexico, many tourists brought home real or fake relics, and often left graffiti. 20th and 21st centuries The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) interrupted tourism in Mexico, but by the 1930s, the Mexican government began promoting tourism again with posters of light-skinned young women and lush gardens. In the 1920s and 30s, there was an "enormous vogue of things Mexico" in the United States, resulting in cultural exchanges, temporary and permanent art exhibitions, and patronage of Mexican artists, such as muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Starting with the administration of Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28), the Mexican government became involved in promoting tourism in Mexico, eventually becoming a cabinet position, the Ministry of Tourism in 1975. In 1929, Mexican president Emilio Portes Gil officially announced the country's entry into the tourism industry. Over the next few years, the industry stayed small because of the ongoing Great Depression, so the government focused its attention on research and was ready after World War II to welcome tourists who could no longer visit Europe instead. During the Jazz Age and the era of Prohibition of alcohol in the U.S., border towns in Mexico, particularly Tijuana became destinations for vice tourism. The song "South of the Border (down Mexico way)" song by Frank Sinatra helped promote the region. It was known for casino gambling, glitzy floor shows, horse- and dog-racing, and other hedonistic pursuits. Chicago gangster Al Capone frequented the Agua Caliente resort, as did big names from Hollywood. "Mafia chic and Hollywood star power fueled the Tijuana mystique and imbued it with ersatz glamour." When Lázaro Cárdenas became president of Mexico, 1934–40, he cracked down on casino gambling in northern Mexico, since it was a source of money and power