Central Coloso

Central Coloso de Aguada
	Coloso y los Cayures en Aguada
	Location of Central Coloso de Aguada
Country	Puerto Rico
City	Aguada
Coordinates	18°22′52″N67°09′41″W / 18.3811°N 67.1613°W
Refinery details
Commissioned	1820s
Decommissioned	2003

Last updated July 29, 2023

Central Coloso, also known as Coloso Sugar Cane Refinery, was a long-running sugarcane refinery in Aguada, Puerto Rico. The refinery was established in late 19th century becoming one of the biggest sugar emporiums in the island. It remained operational until 2003, becoming the last sugarcane refinery to cease operations on the island.

History

Early years

The Coloso origins begin in the 19th century, specifically towards the end of the 1820s when the Caño de las Nasas estate was founded in Aguada. That estate functioned with a cattle-operated sugar mill producing approximately 100 sugar barrels a day.

In the late 1860s, Emilio Vadí acquired the estate and changed its name to Coloso. In 1875, he changed it into sugar cane refinery.

Peak in operations

Upon turning Coloso into a sugarcane refinery, Emilio Vadí mechanized most of the production process. As a result, he produced 1,000 sugar barrels a day. That name increased during the 1870s.

In 1879, Vadí made a partnership with German entrepreneur H. Kuster. Still, due to high debts and the crisis in the sugarcane industry in the late 19th century, Kuster & Vadí sold Coloso to José Arnell Massó in 1897. After buying Central Coloso, Arnell Massó consolidated it with other refinery and sugar mills he had acquired between 1885 and 1895. He also transported the machinery from one of those refineries, Central Monserrate, to Coloso.

As a result of this, Central Coloso ended up covering 4,370 acres, of which approximately 500 were cultivated annually. Coloso also processed sugar that other farmers grew. In 1902, a total of 20,000 sugar sacks were processed. During the peak crop time, workers at Coloso reached 1,500.

In 1904, French investors acquired Coloso and incorporated it under the name of Sucrerie Centrale Coloso de Porto Rico. In 1915, it was bought by West Puerto Rico Sugar Company. In 1921, it became Central Coloso, Inc. At this point, it had around 291 acres. During the next decades, Coloso continued a program of expansion and modernization. In 1952, Coloso had a milling capacity of 5,000 tons of sugar daily. That year, sugar production peaked in the island. In 1961, Coloso reached the highest sugar production tonnage at 73,554 tons.

Decline and privatization

The sugar industry started struggling towards the middle of the 20th century due to several reasons: high cost of production, declining sale prices, credit restrictions, and strikes among workers. Another factor was the industrialization of the island, which caused the shift of the local economy to move away from agriculture.

Central Coloso continued to be administered as a private industry until 1972 when the Government of Puerto Rico leased it as part of a program to rehabilitate the sugarcane industry. In 1976, the government acquired Central Coloso through the Corporación Azucarera de Puerto Rico. This agency was created with the purpose of developing, improving, and intensifying the industry.

During the 1980s, most of the sugar mills and refineries in the island had ceased operations, but Coloso maintained a considerable production tonnage. In 1986, sugarcane production was handed down to private companies.

In the 1990s, the government started implementing a program of privatization of the Corporación Azucarera. In 1998, Coloso became the last operating sugarcane refinery in the island when Central Roig in Yabucoa ceased operations. After that, property and assets were transferred to private companies ending in 2000. Coloso continued to process limited sugarcane until 2003 when it officially ceased operations.

Legacy

Since 1999, Law #275 declared the Central Coloso industrial complex as a historic monument. In 2000, Law #142 declared the Coloso Valley where the refinery is located as an agricultural reserve. Both the refinery and the valley are currently property of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. The Coloso Bridge, used for the transport of sugarcane across the Culebrinas River, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 29, 2010.^[1]

Property deeds to residents

In 2016, twenty-one families were given property title deeds to Central Coloso land, where they had lived for more than five decades.^[2]

Gallery

Bridge and track for the train going to Coloso Sugarmill in Aguada

Related Research Articles

Aguada, originally San Francisco de Asís de la Aguada, is a town and municipality of Puerto Rico, located in the western coastal valley region bordering the Atlantic Ocean, east of Rincón, west of Aguadilla and Moca; and north of Añasco and Mayagüez. It is part of the Aguadilla-Isabela-San Sebastián Metropolitan Statistical Area. Aguada's population is spread over 17 barrios and Aguada Pueblo.

Motril is a town and municipality on the Mediterranean coast in Granada, Spain. It is the second largest town in the province, with a population of 60,368 as of 2016. The town is located near the Guadalfeo River and is 69 km (43 mi) from Granada.

A batey is a settlement around a sugar mill. They can be found in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Engenho</span>

Engenho is a colonial-era Portuguese term for a sugar cane mill and the associated facilities. In Spanish-speaking countries such as Cuba and Puerto Rico, they are called ingenios. Both words mean engine. The word engenho usually only referred to the mill, but it could also describe the area as a whole including land, a mill, the people who farmed and who had a knowledge of sugar production, and a crop of sugar cane. A large estate was required because of the massive amount of labor needed to yield refined sugar, molasses, or rum from raw sugar cane. These estates were prevalent in Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and other countries in the Caribbean. Today, Brazil is still one of the world's major producers of sugar.

Bahía de Jobos or Reserva Natural de Investigación Estuarina de Bahía de Jobos is a federally protected estuary in Aguirre, Puerto Rico. The bay is an intertidal tropical ecosystem dominated by seagrass beds, coral reefs, and mangroves. In an area of 1,140 hectares, the reserve contains five distinct habitat types and provides sanctuary to several endangered species. Bahía de Jobos is one of 28 reserves that comprise the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Estuarine Research Reserve System. The reserve is operated in conjunction with the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA).

Hacienda Mercedita was a 300-acre (120 ha) sugarcane plantation in Ponce, Puerto Rico, founded in 1861, by Juan Serrallés Colón. Today Hacienda Mercedita no longer grows sugarcane and its lands are instead used for growing mangoes, grasses, landscape plants and palms, coconut palms, bananas, and seeds.

Casa Grande is a Peru-based company principally engaged in the agricultural sector. Its activities include the cultivation, growing, processing, industrialization and sale of sugar cane and its derivatives.

Central Guánica was a sugar mill located in Ensenada Barrio in the municipality of Guánica, Puerto Rico. It was one of the largest sugar mills in the Caribbean, and until World War I, it was one of the largest mills in the world. It ceased operations in 1982.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palacete Los Moreau</span> House museum located in Moca, Puerto Rico

Palacete Los Moreau is a house museum located in Moca, Puerto Rico. Historically known as the Labadie Mansion, the house inspired Enrique Laguerre to write La Llamarada. The property was restored as a museum and renamed the "Palacete Los Moreau" in honor of Laguerre's novel. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Hacienda Iruena Manor House.

Andrés Antonio ("Tony") Ramos Mattei was a Puerto Rican sugar industry historian. He is considered the "undisputed authority" on the subject of Puerto Rico's sugar industry.

The Ingenio Azucarero Vives, also known as Hacienda Vives, is a historic sugar mill complex with ruins of windmill and a processing building, in Barrio Machete of Guayama, in southern Puerto Rico. Sugarcane was ground by the windmill and the extracted juice was further processed in the processing building, by slaves. A slave uprising occurred here in the early 1800s.

Central San Vicente was the first sugarcane refinery in Puerto Rico, established in 1873 by Leonardo Igaravidez at Vega Baja.

Descalabrado is a barrio in the municipality of Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico. Its population in 2010 was 4,138.

Espinar is a barrio in the municipality of Aguada, Puerto Rico. Its population in 2010 was 1,281.

Guanábano is a barrio in the municipality of Aguada, Puerto Rico. Its population in 2010 was 749.

El Puente de Coloso also known as Bridge Number 1142 is located in Aguada on PR-418 at the 0.5-kilometer (0.31 mi) marking, between the Guanábano and Espinar barrios in Aguada.

Hacienda Azucarera la Esperanza was a 2265-acre sugarcane plantation in Manatí, Puerto Rico which was founded in the 1830s and by the 1860s was one of the largest in Puerto Rico. It remained operational from 1830 - 1880.

Central Cortada, also known as the Cortada Sugarcane Refinery, was a sugarcane plantation and refinery located in Descalabrado, Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico. The area where the refinery is located has been used for the growth and processing of sugarcane since the 18th century.

References

La sociedad del azúcar en Puerto Rico, 1870–1910; Ramos Mattei, Andrés, Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1988.
El verdor y dulce de nuestra caña de azúcar; Zayas Rivera, Duhamel, 2004.
Trasfondo histórico de la hacienda azucarera puertorriqueña: 1523–1942; Oficina Estatal de Conservación Histórica.

↑ "NRHP Registration Form" (PDF). Agencias PR. US Dept of the Interior. Retrieved July 1, 2019.
↑ "Entregan títulos de propiedad de parcelas en Aguada". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). September 15, 2016. Retrieved June 16, 2020.

External links

Central Coloso on Enciclopedia de Puerto Rico

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "NRHP Registration Form" (PDF). Agencias PR. US Dept of the Interior. Retrieved July 1, 2019.

[2] "Entregan títulos de propiedad de parcelas en Aguada". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). September 15, 2016. Retrieved June 16, 2020.

[1]

[2]