page_title: San Juancito, Honduras
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: San Juancito, Honduras / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A postcard depicting Barrio El Centro of San Juancito, Honduras during the 1920's.
context_page_description: San Juancito is a small pueblo in central Honduras, located 40 km northeast of Tegucigalpa, the nation's capital. The town is in the department of Francisco Morazán. Including the dependent hamlets of Nuevo Rosario, Guacamaya, and Plan Grande, the population totals at about 1400. Its central neighborhood is depicted on the back of the 500-lempira bill.
  While its history is linked to mining, its current importance lies in that it is located within the buffer zone of La Tigra National Park, a cloud forest ecosystem and Honduras' first national park. The park is a huge watershed, providing water for over a half million people in the capital; San Juancito is located on the northern side of the La Tigra, and has had paved access since 2003. It is the lesser-visited of the park's two entrances.
context_section_description: The history of San Juancito is inextricably linked to the mineral wealth of the mountains in which it is perched. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the descendants of today's Tolupan/Jicaque people exploited, in small scale, the minerals of the region. In the 16th century, the Spanish made a short-lived attempt at extracting ore from in the area's mountains. Using the indigenous population as labour, they proceeded to extract gold and silver from the mountainside; however after a few years, the indigenous population was so ravaged by disease and abysmal working conditions that the Spaniards, with no reliable source of labour left, packed up and relocated to other seemingly more viable sites in Honduras.
  In the late 19th century, mining activities were revived but on a much larger and highly organised scale. President Marco Aurelio Soto advertised the mineral wealth of San Juancito, with the intention of attracting foreign investment. In 1880, Julius Valentine, of New York City, founded the New York and Honduras Rosario Mining Company, exchanging 50% of the company's stock for the mining rights of the El Rosario deposits at San Juancito which were owned by Soto. Because of this, San Juancito may have played a role in the relocation of the nation's capital from Comayagua to Tegucigalpa in 1880. While popular myth holds that the capital was moved because of the unwillingness on the part of the Comayaguan elite to accept President Soto's indigenous wife into their social circles, the true motive behind the move was related to his business investments and the development of southern Honduras.
  Between 1880 and 1954, the company extracted gold and silver from veins in the mountainside, most of which was destined for the United States. Julius Valentine's son, Washington Valentine, soon took over his father's post and became the figurehead of the corporation, as well as the human manifestation of all that it represented to the local population. At the onset of operations, the Honduran government provided the company with generous financial incentives, operating with essentially no tax burdens, shipping gold and silver to the US, but by 1895 the company suffered setbacks from declining silver prices, significant tax burdens and acute labor shortages. The company imported heavy machinery from the United States and was granted timber and water rights in the countryside. The timber harvests were utilised for housing construction and mine tunnel support and the water rights permitted the development of the country's first hydroelectric power. The result of this was incredibly rapid growth that meant that by 1888, the mines were far and away the most powerful economic interest in Honduras.
   During its heyday, technological advancements came to San Juancito before any town in Honduras. The first light bulb in Honduras flickered on in San Juancito as a result of the hydroelectric plant built by the mining company, also a national first. The first cinema in all of Central and South America was built in San Juancito. as well as the nation's first telegraph. Pepsi built the first bottling plant in all of Central America there, and a fully operating American Consulate was erected by the mining company's headquarters at over 1600 metres (5300 feet) above sea-level. In the early 20th century, San Juancito had a population of 44,000, roughly equalling that of Tegucigalpa at the time, and was a major trading centre in Central America.
  Life in San Juancito during its mining days was highly segregated. The minority of foreign staff personnel lived in an established camp near the mining headquarters and the majority Honduran population lived below in San Juancito proper, Everything from dance-halls to schools, sporting clubs, and graveyards. The Honduran miners were well paid by local standards and enjoyed the benefits of schools and the hospital established by the Company.
  In 1954, due to the exhaustion of mineral reserves, which coincided with a national labor movement, and new mine development at El Mochito, Las Vegas, Sta. Barbara, El Rosari
caption: San Juancito's "Barrio El Centro" in the 1920s
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