One of my favorite photo sub­jects is ruins and old run-down indus­trial build­ings. Great sub­jects for fine art images. See­ing his­tory with my own eyes is just too cool. To that end, I plan to spend sev­eral posts cov­er­ing the sugar, rum and rail­road his­tory of PR. This is the first install­ment in that effort.

I’ve spent a lot of time research­ing sugar pro­duc­tion and the rum (ron/Spanish) dis­til­leries of Puerto Rico.

Cof­fee, tobacco and sugar cane were the pri­mary income crops from the time the island was ‘set­tled’ until well into the 20th cen­tury.  Slav­ery, fol­lowed by cheap, unor­ga­nized labor was the dri­ving force behind all pro­duc­tion. As labor costs increased, the Span­ish and then Amer­i­can inter­ests pro­ceeded to mech­a­nize where they could. Some plan­ta­tions were still using ox drawn carts to trans­port the cane from the fields, up through the late 1940’s.

Prior to the inter­state high­ways, there was a rail ser­vice that cir­cled almost the entire island. What’s more, lots of plan­ta­tions (hacien­das) would have their own nar­row gauge trains work­ing the fields and local sugar mills. There were many of these small sugar mills spread out all over PR.

As of today, you can still see their red brick, square chim­neys dot­ting the landscape.

You can’t miss ‘em since they stand 40 to 50 feet tall. Most are in some state of decay. A few have been turned into his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments to a bygone era like the one at the Botan­i­cal Gar­dens in Caguas.

The island wide pub­lic train ser­vice came to a halt in 1951. Local nar­row gauge sugar cane trains ended in 1958. Arroyo ran a small train for tourists from 1984 to 2005.  It was a guided 50 minute run around the last sur­viv­ing sugar hacienda. It closed for restora­tion and never reopened, but sup­pos­edly, the Depart­ment of the Inte­rior has picked up the project. I’ll be look­ing into that more in the near future.

In all fair­ness, there is a pair of diesel loco­mo­tives doing ser­vice at the Port of Ponce. They are used strictly for mov­ing tank cars in sup­port of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal biz. Oth­er­wise, there is no work­ing train ser­vice left. Too bad too! Tren Urbano in San Juan don’t count.

RUM.. ARRGGG!!!

Early Rum dis­til­la­tion in PR can be tracked back to the 16th cen­tury. It started out as a domes­tic prod­uct not suit­able for west­ern palates, but it did not take long before they were export­ing a refined, fil­tered prod­uct like we enjoy today.

Believe it or not, ExPats from Ire­land were instru­men­tal in expand­ing the sugar and rum indus­tries and ini­ti­at­ing the cul­ti­va­tion of tobacco. Between try­ing to avoid ser­vice in the “Queen’s Navy” circa 1585 (and for­ward) and the Potato Famine of the 1840’s, many Irish­men have set­tled here.  In 1823, 2 Irish broth­ers brought the first steam dri­ven sugar mill to Puerto Rico and set up shop near Ponce on their own plan­ta­tion. Baya­mon, out­side of San Juan has a com­mu­nity (urban­iza­tion) called Irlanda Heights ( Ire­land Heights). Yes, St. Patrick’s Day is cel­e­brated in many places. Luquillo hosts a St. Patty’s Day parade as well. Who knew?

I’ll be elab­o­rat­ing on sugar, rum and the RR’s in future posts.

Aguirre, a place lost to a Bygone Era

Because the area around Aguirre was the last area to sus­pend sugar pro­duc­tion (1993), I started my field work there. It’s off Hwy 3, east of Sali­nas and west of Guayama. It’s tech­ni­cally a bar­rio of Sali­nas so no plaza or mayor’s office.

Around Aguirre, banana and papaya groves stand where sug­ar­cane once grew.

Not quite a ghost town, but close. Its a small com­mu­nity of only a cou­ple hun­dred folks. The Post Office stands next door to the defunct mill. A sign warn­ing about Asbestos expo­sure was posted in the park­ing lot. I did not ven­ture into those ruins… maybe at a later date.

Most of the homes as well as the busi­ness struc­tures date from the early 1920’s There was evi­dence of new homes built of cement so there is some activ­ity going on. There is a golf course there, but I did not check it out. While dri­ving around, I found an old aban­doned 2 story cement hotel and the tiny rail­road depot of Aguirre. Both were dated 1926.

The lit­tle RR freight office was over­grown with grass well over my head, but that did not stop me from check­ing it out. The only posted warn­ing signs were about trash­ing it or shoot­ing off guns. Some­one had gone to a lot of trou­ble to plant dozens and dozens of small trees out in front of the place. I worked my way through the grass to get inside for a shot. The stairs to the 2nd floor were rot­ted out so I passed on that. Maybe next time. It was easy to see where the load­ing dock sat in ref­er­ence to the freight doors. It must have been a busy lit­tle place in the ’30’s and ’40’s.

Back track­ing to the aban­doned hotel, I was able to walk and shoot the entire struc­ture. It must have been quite a grand place as well. The 2nd floor had a com­mand­ing view of the old mill and the Caribbean Sea beyond. The struc­ture sat on a slight rise giv­ing it a major sense of pres­ence. Employee’s quar­ters could be seen off the back along with a giant well. Just off the hotel was what appeared to be a restau­rant or club con­nected via a cement walk­way. Also in a major state of decay.

I will come back to Aguirre with ‘other’ gear another time. The photo pos­si­bil­i­ties are fantastic.

Bahia Jobos

There is a nature pre­serve off the coast, near Aguirre so we pro­ceeded to check it out. The road quickly turned into a rut­ted mess with the locals packed around sev­eral seafood shacks and restau­rants. I wanted to check one out, but it was just too crowded for me. Park­ing would have been a pain. The end of the road came sooner than I was expect­ing with a chain strung across it. All of this is right at the water’s edge. Many homes, some quite expen­sive, lined the high side of the road. We made our way back to Sali­nas and on home to Coamo from there.

Arroyo is next on the list to check out.

I also located the Speed­way in Sali­nas where they run stock car drag races and oval track com­pe­ti­tion. It is open on Sun­days, Mon­days and Wednes­days. I look for­ward to check­ing it out as well.

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