page_title: Antigua Guatemala
section_title: 20th-century events
hierarchical_section_title: Antigua Guatemala / History / 20th-century events
caption_attribution_description: Español: Ruinas del Convento de San Francisco en Antigua Guatemala en 1916.
context_page_description: Antigua Guatemala, commonly referred to as just Antigua or la Antigua, is a city in the central highlands of Guatemala known for its preserved Spanish Baroque-influenced architecture as well as a number of ruins of colonial churches. It served as the capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
  Antigua Guatemala serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name. It also serves as the departmental capital of Sacatepéquez Department.
context_section_description: In April 1920, during the very last days of Manuel Estrada Cabrera regime, prince Wilhelm of Sweden visited Antigua Guatemala and wrote about his impressions of the city in his book Between two continents. His book is an objective description of the terrible conditions the road and the ruins used to be in: "For some little way outside Guatemala City it was a fairly decent car ride, but then the roads began developing sand drifts, and later, rockfalls of tumbled stone as two years earlier, the country had been devastated by a powerful earthquake and government corruption made the recovery impossible".  "The hills grew steeper and steeper, the jolting more pronounced and the stones even sharper; besides, on top of the road was a two-foot layer of dust which hid the pitfalls but did not detract from their effect".  "Along the way, they passed long lines of Indians on their way to Guatemala City, carrying their heavy burdens with apparent ease; men, women and children carried something in the way of a load, and they all carried it quickly. With respect to traffic, it was almost non-existent, aside from mule-pulled wagons".
  After passing Mixco, the road proceeded more steeply upward, with a precipitous drop on one side and sheer cliff rising on the other; here and there a cross stood by the wayside, marking the spot where some traveler had died.  After reaching the highest point, they started down towards Antigua.  The city was in sight when a person in uniform planted himself in front of the car; it turned out to be the city commandant, along with six soldiers with wooden guns. Compared to Guatemala City at the time, Antigua was quite nicely kept, although all the churches were equally dilapidated and left entirely to themselves, as rebuilding since 1773 was confined to the strictly necessary. For the most part, only blank walls and shattered domes remained to greet the visitor by 1920, and some of the churches were in pitiful conditions.  In Santa Clara, for example, a mule was grazing, and in the Church of Grace a native family had taken up its quarters, along with their varied collection of domestic animals.
  But there were other monuments in decent shape: 
  The Escuela de Cristo was one of the best preserved churches and was united with a convent that was still standing.  The priest that received the Prince and his three companions told them that all the silver and gold from the church had already been sold by his predecessors, so that he, to his extreme regret, was unable to sell any to them.
  The old Capuchin monastery with its many underground passages from the monks' cells to those of the nuns was worth a visit, especially one part where the cells were built in a circle surrounding a central common chamber.
caption: Abandoned San Francisco Church ruins in 1916. Photographs by Arnold Genthe.
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