"No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself"Friedrich Nietzsche

Hacienda Horizonte   (Barrio/District)  Caguana... Utuado, Puerto Rico 



Utuado is a municipality of Puerto Rico located in the central/western mountainous region of the island known as La Cordillera Central. It is located north of Adjuntas and Ponce; south of Hatillo and Arecibo; east of Lares; and west of Ciales and Jayuya. In land area it is the third largest municipality in Puerto Rico (after Arecibo and Ponce). According to the 2000 US Census the city has a population of 35,336 spread over 24 wards and Utuado Pueblo (the downtown area and the administrative center of the city). The name Utuado derives from the Taíno word "otoao", meaning "between mountains."

The golden era of coffee - "black gold"

During the late 1800's Utuado experienced an explosive economic growth centered around the cultivation of coffee, also known at the time as "oro negro" or "black gold." By the 1890s Utuado was the largest producer of coffee in Puerto Rico and the second municipality (after Ponce) with the largest population. It produced a rich social lifestyle for many of its citizens and a casino and theatre were established in the town. The progress of the town was so evident that the regent Queen of Spain, Maria Cristina, honored the town with the title of Ciudad (City) on August 20, 1894.^[1] In 1896 or 1897 Utuado was the first city in Puerto Rico with a public electric lighting system powered by a hydraulic turbine power plant, ^{[2] [3]} and in that same year mayor Juan Casellas was planning a train system to unite Utuado with Arecibo. By 1899 this golden era came to a screeching halt due to two very important events that had a lasting negative effect on the city's economy. The first event was the United States occupation of the island in 1898, which made sugar the new crop of importance instead of coffee. Utuado's mountainous landscape was not ideal for growing sugarcane making it impossible for it to compete in the sugar industry on a significant level. The second event and the one to have the most profound impact was Hurricane San Ciriaco in 1899, which literally wiped out the coffee haciendas.

Utuado visited by a President

In 1906 Utuado had the honor of being visited by President Theodore Roosevelt, who recommended building a bridge in the area known as "La Playita."

Agriculture : Utuado has regained some of its coffee producing power and was the 3rd largest coffee producer in Puerto Rico in the 2002 USDA Agricultural Census. It also produces oranges (ranked 4th), plantains (ranked 6th) and bananas (ranked 9th). It has also been successful with livestock inventory ranking 3rd with hives of bees and 13th with pigs. Industrially, Utuado counts with a few companies that produce textiles, paper and stone.

Business

Utuado today is equipped with a modern and competitive telecommunications infrastructure. Major cell phone companies including Claro, Centennial and Sprint offer mobile coverage, and Liberty Cablevision and DirecTV offer cable and satellite television service, respectively, with Spanish and English channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, and many others) as well as high-speed internet service. Most of the public areas in the University of Puerto Rico Utuado campus are set up with Wi-Fi wireless internet access.