“From Clio’s Briefcase”
From Darkness to Light…
Güines in its embryonic state, had huts made out of palms and fronds; maybe dwellings made out of mud and tiles, arching from Leguina to Los Molinos Street. A spread of houses, next to La Máquina de Arroz (i.e., The Rice Mill) and others, not many through the valley, the level of the soil sloping down from La Máquina and raising itself a little as a hillock at La Ceiba (i.e., The Kapok Tree).
The stream from Zanja de los Españoles (i.e., The Spaniards’ Ditch) fighting to open a hole full of life from La Máquina to La Ceiba, was causing to pinpoint with dwellings, the traces of a main street; that was called Real Street, because it was the more ostentatious, the more exclusive, the longest and the one having more significance. It was like the spinal cord or a stronger stroke for the population groups being established.
When did this happen? Darkness surrounds the evolution of this primary period of Güines. It is a known chronological truth that in 1768 there was in the center of the neighborhood, a church and that the same was located where it actually is, next to one of the bends of Zanja de los Españoles and in front of it, the terrains where the street was easing, parallel to the Zanja, that ceased to be named “de los Españoles” and was then called Zanja Real (i.e., Royal Ditch). And it is known that that neighborhood was alarmed in 1777, when the earth shook…
We do not intend to describe this evolution as the principal motive of our theme. We hereby establish another motive. The suggestive search for news, our fixed goal in efforts to offer the reader, our community’s evolution. In this one, we want to say that the investigation attempts to highlight Güines’s progress when the community inaugurated the new form, the progressive service of the public or domestic lighting system.
As soon as in the vicinity of La Ceiba the sun, every evening, would say goodbye to its residents, big candles of wax under the transparent glass of lampposts, small oil lamps, as fireflies in repose or lighted torches and torch splinters, were surely the means of illumination used by residents to rule over the surrounding darkness. Under the roofs, oil lamps, oily wicks, the smoky consumption of burning wood and maybe some other way in utilizing wax and wick, would offer their resplendent light in controlling darkness. Besides, the moon, fifty minutes later every evening, had the mission of shining on streets, alleys and in the emptiness of vacant lots, the reddish brightness of house lighting projected on the roads, fighting with the cold and white lights of the moon’s rays.
Things being the way they were, on the thirtieth day of September 1859, His Excellency the Superior Civil Governor, granted Don Ignacio Valdés O’Farrill, under strict stipulations, the establishment of a system of gas lighting for the Villa of Güines for a period of twenty five years. That is why, until 1884, the beneficiary would have for himself, all profits from this business. Güines had taken a firm step to go from darkness to light…
The Gas meter was installed near La Ceiba neighborhood. It was located in front of Puente de la Paz (i.e., Bridge of Peace), where Real and San Julián Streets intersect, to the right. The last urban portion of Zanja de los Españoles, flowed under Puente de la Paz.
This new local industry sold its fluid for lighting for twenty-one years, with relative success. This is deducted from the known fact: The Gas meter ceased to function in 1880. In 1887 it was purchased by Don Francisco García Montes, who rebuilt the factory in its semi-destroyed part due to the neglect it suffered since 1880. García Montes invested several thousand pesos in this endeavor, to give Güines “a comfortable lighting system so alien to the dangers of petroleum” as it was said in that era’s chronicle. The process of re-installing the service and its use by residents was slow. Among the causes for the slowness in spreading its use, were the necessary deposit for its consumption, one peso per light; another, to collect four pesos for every thousand cubic feet of gas, to wit, 15 cents per meter, and, last, the lack of support offered by the Town Council, because the public lighting system was still using coal oil.
On September 1887 the business had a new Administrator. It was Don Santiago Soto Entralgo, who replaced José León Vivó. Mr. Soto’s diligence and ability was beneficial for the success the business achieved.
José Manuel Carrillo (a true Güinero social leader, with the efficient help of his wife Doña Ana María Soto), Antonio Granda and Valentín Cuesta Rendueles, were Güinero industrialists who gave the Villa gas light in its Colonial and Republican past.
During the Revolutionary period, the gas plant ceased to exist. And one day, in 1906, the electric light, provided by Havana Central, snuffed out the retorts of our Gas meter, in the path of Güines civilization, from darkness to light and progress during these modern times.
Translated by the staff of Círculo Güinero de Los Ángeles
Continue to: Summarized History of Arango y Parreño's School in Güines
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