Salvador Alvarado Rubio was a general and politician during the Mexican Revolution. He was serving in the Constitutionalist Army under President Carranza. Alvarado was the Governor of Yucatán from February 1915 to November, 1918, and Secretary of the Treasury under President de la Huerta. There is a Salvador Alvarado Municipality in the State of Sinaloa, where he was born, named in his honor.

The Mexican Revolution was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history" and resulted in the destruction of the Federal Army, its replacement by a revolutionary army, and the transformation of Mexican culture and government. The northern Constitutionalist faction prevailed on the battlefield and drafted the present-day Constitution of Mexico, which aimed to create a strong central government. Revolutionary generals held power from 1920 to 1940. The revolutionary conflict was primarily a civil war, but foreign powers, having important economic and strategic interests in Mexico, figured in the outcome of Mexico's power struggles; the U.S. involvement was particularly high. The conflict led to the deaths of around one million people, mostly noncombatants.