page_title: Museo de la Historia de Ponce
section_title: History of the Museum
hierarchical_section_title: Museo de la Historia de Ponce / History of the Museum
caption_attribution_description: English: Museum of the History of Ponce - at Mayor and Isabel Streets in Ponce, southern Puerto Rico.
context_page_description: The Museo de la Historia de Ponce is a museum located in the historic Casa Salazar-Candal in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico. The museum depicts the city's ecology, economy, architecture, government, and elements of daily life. It seeks to promote the research, conservation, and dissemination of the historic heritage of Ponce and Puerto Rico.
  Inaugurated on 12 December 1992, it was the first museum in Puerto Rico established to cover the history of the people of a town or city. It traces the city's history from the Taino Indians to today. The Museum was inaugurated under the administration of Mayor Rafael Cordero Santiago, as part of the tricentennial celebration of the founding of the city.
  It is located in the historic district of the city, a short two-block walk from the central Plaza Las Delicias town square, at the southeast corner of Isabel and Mayor Cantera streets. The Museum proper is housed in the historic Casa Salazar-Candal but also includes the neighboring Rosali-Zapater house, which houses administratives offices of the museum, in addition to the empty lot that once held the residence of the Schuck Gelpí family.
context_section_description: The idea of creating a Ponce history museum dates back to the 1930s, following a citizens group's initiative, but the project did not materialize then.  Interest in the proposal revived years later under Ponce's Secretariat of Culture.  The plan visualized a museum to be constructed on the block bordered by Isabel, Mayor, Cristina, and Salud streets, and Casa Salazar and Casa Zapater, two historic homes, were acquired, as was the empty lot where Casa Shuck Gelpí had once stood. However, the project came to a standstill once again.
  The plan was revived once again, but with modifications, at the end of the 1980s. This time the project came under the direction of Ms. Maruja Candal Salazar and Dr. Neysa Rodríguez Deynes (curator and founder). They worked in conjunction with a team of curators that included Lizette Cabrera Salcedo, Dr. José Molinelli, Alberto del Toro, and J. A. Figueroa Irizarry, as well as museum specialists Aníbal Sepúlveda, Néstor Barretto, and Jorge Carbonell, members of the Carimar Research Center. The four-year period from 1989 to 1992 saw the restoration of the Salazar and Zapater houses to serve as home to the Museum, and the completion of the research, planning, and design of its first four permanent exhibit halls of the museum, namely, ecology, panorama, economic activity, and architecture.
  In 1994, the second phase of the project was initiated, under the direction of Lizette Cabrera Salcedo: the creation of two permanent exhibits, one focused on health and one entitled "Ponce in Puerto Rican Political Life", in addition to a multimedia presentation "Ponce is Ponce." In 1998, the Ernesto Ramos Antonini auditorium, designed by architect José Bermúdez, was inaugurated under the direction of Lizette Cabrera Salcedo, at the location of the old Shuck Gelpí House.
caption: Part of the front facade of the Museo de la Historia de Ponce at Calle Mayor and Calle Isabel streets
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D50", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.6", "Image DateTime": "2009:07:12 22:37:07", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "210", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2614", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5575", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "24/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:06:29 02:39:02", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:06:29 02:39:02", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "22/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF SubSecTime": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "0", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "0", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2478", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "52", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}