The city was once famous for its cutlery; but its modern manufactures (chiefly earthenware, hempen goods, and hats) are inconsiderable. It has some trade in wool, cotton, flax, corn and liqueurs. The warm mineral springs of Graena, much frequented during the summer, are 6 miles west.
The most famous feature of the town is the cave dwellings in the Barrio Troglodyte where upwards of half the population live. These caves are in no way primitive dwellings and are a solution to the fierce heat of the Granadin summer.
After 711 it rose to some importance as a Moorish fortress and trading station, renamed Wadi-Aci ("the Wadi of Acci" It was surrendered without a siege to the Spaniards, under Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1489.
The legend of the Seven Apostolic Men preserved in the Mozarabic Missal places the episcopal see of St. Torquatus in Guadix, and names him as one of the seven. The matron Luparia built a baptistery and primitive church. From then until 303, when Felix presided at the Council of Elvira, there is no record preserved of the Accitanian bishops.
Liliolus attended the Third Council of Toledo in 589, and the names of the Accitanian bishops are to be found among those who attended the other Toletan councils; Clarencius at the fourth and fifth; Justus at the sixth; Julian at the eighth; Magnarius at the ninth and tenth; and Ricila, the last bishop whose name has come down to us before the Mohammedan invasion, at subsequent ones.
In the Mozarabic period the diocese of Guadix continued to exist. Isidorus Pacensis mentions Frodoarius, who presided seven years over the See of Guadix. Quiricus assisted at the Council of Córdoba before 839.
The Almohades, in the twelfth century, destroyed this together with the other Andalusian sees; it was not restored until the time of the Catholic sovereigns. Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, erected the new see on 21 May, 1492, in virtue of the Apostolic commission of Innocent VIII granted on 4 August, 1486, restoring, by right of postliminium, the Apostolic rank possessed by the see previous to the Islamic invasion. The diocese of Baza, founded in 1306, was united to the See of Guadix in 1493.
The modern cathedral, on the site occupied by the principal mosque, was commenced in 1710 and completed in 1796. The Seminary of St. Torquatus was founded by Bishop Juan José Fonseca in 1595; Charles IV of Spain founded an hospice in 1803, and the present hospital occupies the ancient Jesuit college. Bishop Timotes Hernández Mulas, b. at Morales del Vino, in the diocese of Zamora, 22 Aug., 1856, ordained in 1882, consecrated at Cuenca, 26 April, 1908, succeeded Mgr. Maximiano Fernandez del Rincon y Soto Davila in the See of Guadix. In the early 20th century the diocese had about 116,000 Catholics, 62 parishes, 87 churches, 87 chapels, and 162 priests. There is a Franciscan friary at Baza, homes of the Little Sisters of the Poor at Guadix and Baza, Presentation, Franciscan, Conceptionists and Poor Clare nuns at Guadix.