Timeline of San Juan, Puerto Rico

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

16th-18th centuries

Porto Rico, 17th century^[1]

• 1521 - "Ciudad de Puerto Rico" founded by Spanish colonists from nearby Caparra.
• 1533 - La Fortaleza built.
• 1539 - Castillo San Felipe del Morro construction begins.
• 1540 - Cathedral of San Juan Bautista built.
• 1595 - November 22: Battle of San Juan.
• 1598 - Boquerón battery sacked by British forces.
• 1625 - September 24: Town besieged by Dutch forces.
• 1651 - Monastery of Our Lady Carmen of San José inaugurated.
• 1735 - San José Church built.
• 1769 - Powder house built.
• 1783 - Castillo de San Cristóbal built.
• 1787
  • May 2: 1787 Boricua earthquake.
  • May 3: Fiesta de Cruz begins.^[2]
• 1797 - April: San Juan besieged by British forces.^[3]

19th century

• 1820 - Population: 7,658.^[4]
• 1822 - Board of charity established.^[5]
• 1832 - Coliseo (theatre) in use.^[6]
• 1845 - Town divided into barrios San Francisco, San Juan, Santa Barbara, Santo Domingo, and Ballaja.^[7]
• 1853
  • Cataño-San Juan steamship begins operating.^[8]
  • Marketplace built in Santa Barbara barrio.^[8]
• 1857 - Carretera Central (road) built.^[8]
• 1859 - Town expands (adding barrios De la Marina and Puerta de Tierra).^[9]
• 1863 - Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery established.
• 1864 - Ballajá Barracks built.

La Plaza, San Juan, ca. 1900

• 1865 - Colegio de Párvulos built.
• 1879 - Jose Ramon Becerra y de Garrete becomes mayor.
• 1898
  • May 12: Bombardment of San Juan by United States forces.
  • June 22: Second Battle of San Juan.
  • June 28: Third Battle of San Juan.
  • August 12: End of hostilities between US and Spanish military forces. United States Military Government begins.
  • October: Francisco del Valle becomes mayor.^[10]
  • San Juan News begins publication.^[11]
  • Railway built (approximate date).^[12]
• 1899 - Population: 32,048.^[13]
  • April 11: Town becomes part of United States-annexed Puerto Rico per Treaty of Paris.

20th century

• 1900
  • Insane asylum established.^[5]
  • May 1: Foraker Act comes into force, civil government for Puerto Rico begins. United States Military Government ends.
• 1901 - San Juan high school opens.^[14]
• 1902 - Town government formed into legislative and executive branches.^[15]
• 1903
  • University of Puerto Rico established.
  • Roberto H. Todd Weels becomes mayor.
• 1909 - Harbor enlarged.^[16]
• 1910
  • Puerto Rico Ilustrado begins publication.^[11][17]
  • Population: 48,716.^[16]
• 1913 - Cine Luna opens.^[18]
• 1918 - October 11: 1918 San Fermín earthquake.
• 1921 - Academia del Perpetuo Socorro founded.
• 1923 - United States Army Garrison Fort Buchanan established.
• 1925 - Academia San Jorge founded.
• 1928
  • Luis Muñoz Rivera Park laid out.
  • September: San Felipe Segundo hurricane.
• 1929 - Capitol of Puerto Rico building constructed.
• 1932 - September–October: San Ciprian hurricane.
• 1940 - United States Naval Air Station Isla Grande established.^[19]
• 1946 - Felisa Rincón de Gautier becomes mayor.^[20]
• 1948 - City flag design adopted.
• 1949
  • Caribe Hilton Hotel built.
  • San Juan National Historic Site United States National Park Service established.
• 1950
  • October 30: San Juan Nationalist revolt.
  • Residencial Las Casas housing complex built.
• 1951 - Río Piedras becomes part of city.^[21]
• 1952 - City becomes part of Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
• 1955 - Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport opens.
• 1958 - Casa del Libro established.^[22][23]
• 1959 - The San Juan Star newspaper begins publication.^[11]
• 1960 - Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan de Puerto Rico formed.
• 1962 - Hotel El Convento in business.
• 1966
  • Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and San Juan Children's Choir established.
  • July: 1966 Central American and Caribbean Games held.
• 1968 - Plaza Las Américas shopping mall in business.
• 1971 - San Juan Botanical Garden inaugurated.
• 1976 - June: 2nd G7 summit held near city.
• 1979 - July: 1979 Pan American Games held.
• 1983 - Old San Juan designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• 1984 - Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art established.
• 1989 - September: Hurricane Hugo.
• 1992 - Museo de Las Américas founded.^[24]

21st century

• 2000
  • Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico established.
  • Population: 395,326.
• 2004 - September: Hurricane Jeanne occurs.
• 2008 - September: Hurricane Kyle occurs.
• 2009 - May: Economic protest.^[25]
• 2013 - Carmen Yulín Cruz becomes mayor.^[26]

See also

• San Juan history
• Subdivisions of San Juan, Puerto Rico
• National Register of Historic Places listings in metropolitan San Juan, Puerto Rico
• List of mayors of San Juan, Puerto Rico
• History of Puerto Rico

other cities in Puerto Rico

• Timeline of Ponce, Puerto Rico, history

References

1. Montanus 1671.
2. Davis 1972.
3. Forts 1998.
4. Kinsbruner 1978.
5. Annual Report of the Insane Asylum of San Juan Porto Rico 1906. NY.
6. Donald Thompson (1990). "Notes on the Inauguration of the San Juan (Puerto Rico) Municipal Theater". Latin American Music Review 11.
7. Joseph 1992.
8. Matos Rodríguez 1999.
9. Kinsbruner 1990.
10. "New Mayor of San Juan", New York Times, October 30, 1898
11. "San Juan (P.R.) Newspapers". WorldCat. USA: Online Computer Library Center. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
12. Sanchez 1991.
13. Baedeker 1909.
14. Annual Report of the Governor of Porto Rico. Washington DC. 1902.
15. "Historia breve de la Asamblea Municipal" [Brief history of the Municipal Assembly] (in Spanish). Legislatura Municipal de San Juan. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
16. Britannica 1910.
17. "Porto Rico". Nelson Chesman & Co.'s Newspaper Rate Book. USA. 1922.
18. "Movie Theaters in San Juan, Puerto Rico". CinemaTreasures.org. Los Angeles: Cinema Treasures LLC. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
19. "Bases in South America and the Caribbean Area, Including Bermuda". Building the Navy's Bases in World War II. Washington DC: U.S. Govt. Printing Office. 1947. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
20. "Felisa Rincon de Gautier, 97, Mayor of San Juan". New York Times. September 19, 1994.
21. "San Juan, Puerto Rico: Breve Historia del Desarrollo Urbano de la Ciudad de San Juan Bautista, Ciudad Capital de Puerto Rico" [San Juan, Puerto Rico: A Brief History of Urban Development of the City of San Juan Bautista, City Capital of Puerto Rico] (in Spanish). Legislatura Municipal de San Juan. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
22. "Pynson Printers records, 1927-1933". Research Collections. New York Public Library. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
23. "Casa del Libro". San Juan. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
24. "Orígenes, Historia y Misión" (in Spanish). Museo de Las Américas. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
25. "Timeline: Puerto Rico". BBC News. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
26. "Meet the Mayors". Washington, DC: United States Conference of Mayors. Retrieved July 6, 2013.

Bibliography

in English

Published in the 17th-19th centuries

• Antonio de Alcedo; G.A. Thompson (1812), "Puerto Rico", Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies [Diccionario geográfico-historico de las Indias Occidentales o América], London: Printed for James Carpenter, Puerto Rico, the capital
• Jedidiah Morse; Richard C. Morse (1823), "Porto Rico", A New Universal Gazetteer (4th ed.), New Haven: S. Converse
• William Drysdale (January 18, 1891). "In Porto Rico's Capital". New York Times.
• Frederick A. Ober (1899), "San Juan, the Capital", Puerto Rico and its Resources, New York: D. Appleton and Co.
• Robert Thomas Hill (1899), "Cities of Porto Rico", Cuba and Porto Rico (2nd ed.), New York: Century Company

Published in the 20th century

• "San Juan", Register of Porto Rico for 1903, San Juan: Office of the Secretary, (Louis E. Tuzo and Co.), 1903
• "Porto Rico", The United States, with Excursions to Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, and Alaska (4th ed.), Leipzig: K. Baedeker, 1909, OCLC 02338437
• "San Juan", Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.), New York, 1910, OCLC 14782424 – via Internet Archive
• A. Hyatt Verrill (1914), "San Juan", Porto Rico past and present and San Domingo of today, New York: Dodd, Mead
• Ernst B. Filsinger (1922), "San Juan", Commercial Travelers' Guide to Latin America, Washington, DC: Govt. Print. Office
• Frank Otto Gatell (1959). "Puerto Rico in the 1830's; The Journal of Edward Bliss Emerson". The Americas 16.
• Martha Ellen Davis (1972). "Social Organization of a Musical Event: The Fiesta de Cruz in San Juan, Puerto Rico". Ethnomusicology 16.
• Jay Kinsbruner (1978). "The Pulperos of Caracas and San Juan during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century". Latin American Research Review 13.
• Jay Kinsbruner (1990). "Caste and Capitalism in the Caribbean: Residential Patterns and House Ownership among the Free People of Color of San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1823-46". Hispanic American Historical Review 70.
• Joseph P. Sanchez (1991). "Infrastructure of Puerto Rico in the 19th Century". Second International Symposium on Historic Preservation in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. San Juan, Puerto Rico: U.S. National Park Service, San Juan National Historic Site.
• J. W. Joseph; Stephen C. Bryne (1992). "Socio-Economics and Trade in Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico: Observations from the Ballaja Archaeological Project". Historical Archaeology 26.
• Forts of Old San Juan: San Juan National Historic Site, Puerto Rico. Washington, D.C.: United States National Park Service. c. 1998.
• Félix V. Matos Rodríguez (1999), Women and urban change in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1820-1868, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, ISBN 0813016762

Published in the 21st century

• Ramón Grosfoguel (2003), "World Cities in the Caribbean: Miami and San Juan", Colonial Subjects: Puerto Ricans in a Global Perspective, University of California Press, ISBN 9780520230200
• David Marley (2005), "San Juan", Historic Cities of the Americas, Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, ISBN 1576070271

in Spanish

• Antonio de Alcedo (1788), "Puertorico", Diccionario geográfico-historico de las Indias Occidentales o América (in Spanish), Madrid: Manuel Gonzalez
• Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra (1866), Historia geográfica, civil y natural de la Isla de San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico [Geographic, civil and natural history of the island of Saint John the Baptist of Puerto Rico] (in Spanish), Puerto-Rico: Imp. y Librería de Acosta, OCLC 82511773
• Waldo Jiménez de la Romera (1887), "La capital", Cuba, Puerto-Rico y Filipinas (in Spanish), Barcelona: D. Cortezo y ca., OCLC 3153821
• Adolfo de Hostos (1966). Historia de San Juan: Citudad muitirada, 1521-1898 [History of San Juan: Walled City, 1521-1898] (in Spanish). San Juan.
• Silvia Alvarez-Curbelo; Aníbal Sepúlveda-Rivera (2011). De vuelta a la ciudad: San Juan de Puerto Rico 1997-2001 [Back to the city: San Juan de Puerto Rico 1997-2001] (in Spanish). San Juan, P.R.: Fundación Sila M. Calderón. ISBN 9780982080603.

in other languages

• Joannes de Laet (1625), "St. Juan de Porto Rico", Nieuwe wereldt, ofte, Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien [New World, Description of the West Indies] (in Dutch), Tot Leyden: Isaack Elzevier
• Arnoldus Montanus (1671). "Porto Rico". De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld [The New and Unknown World: or Description of America and the Southland]. Antwerp: J. Meurs.

External links

• Materials related to San Juan, Puerto Rico, various dates (via U.S. Library of Congress, Prints & Photos Division)
• Works related to San Juan, PR, various dates (via Digital Public Library of America).
• Map of San Juan, 1982
• Map of San Juan, 1940

Coordinates: 18°27′00″N 66°04′00″W / 18.45°N 66.066667°W