Mayabeque Textile Company

Mayabeque Textile Company

Its construction started in 1945 in land of the farm named San José de la Macagua, located on kilometer 2 of Güines to Catalina Highway, the property of a Mr. Ravelo who sold that farm to the American company Burlington Industries to establish a textile plant in Güines. This company had a Mr. Hotchkiss as its General Manager.

The construction works had a lot of problems and were stopped from 1945 to 1947 due to the lack of construction materials, specifically cement, steel rods and other materials.

They were re-started in 1947 and the textile mill was completed the next year beginning to operate in 1948 with about 100 looms, 100 hangers, 100 threaders, 1 warper, 1 gluer and 1 bobbin machine.

Again it closed its doors, this time in 1949, reopening in 1951 under new administration, Mr. Arturo Martín de Nicolás being the new General Manager.

The textile mill consisted of the Preparation Department, with gluing, threading, warping and cleaning, whose boss was Juan Gómez; then the Loom Department, with José Gómez as its boss and finally the Inspection Department, to classify the fabrics, sending them to the Marianao plant where they were given the last finish.

From 1952 until 1954, Mayabeque Textile Company, Inc. had new equipment, among them more than 600 looms, four drums gluing machines, a Swiss bobbin machine all of them installed in a separate shop, the old shop being used as the Fabrics Department.

In 1957 the textile mill was working at full capacity with 3 shifts, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. José Gómez being the boss; the second shift was from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. supervised by Raúl Martínez and the last shift from 11 p.m. until 7 a.m., Francisco Garcés being the boss.

This industry offered jobs to hundreds of Güineros for many years being the pride of the Villa during its existence.

With the arrival of the Communist system in our country, the factory was confiscated without indemnification and a little bit later, production started to decline, not having capital or raw materials, but more important, lacking human help that refused to work under the established slave system and today it has been closed, its equipment and machinery destroyed and in its building there is a so called shoe factory that is not working.

Continue to: Retailers Association