page_title: Torremolinos
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Torremolinos / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Stone bench in Parque de Bateria, Torremolinos, South Spain
context_page_description: Torremolinos is a municipality in Andalusia, southern Spain, west of Málaga. A poor fishing village before the growth in tourism began in the late 1950s, Torremolinos was the first of the Costa del Sol resorts to be developed and is still the most popular in the region.
  On the western shore of the Bay of Málaga and in front of the Sierra de Mijas 13 km from Málaga, it is served by the A-7 motorway, which bypasses the city to the north, the Cercanías commuter train and Avanzabus.
  In 2013, it had 69,389 inhabitants, making it the sixth largest city in the province. The township has an area of 20 km² and a population density of 3153.85 inhabitants/km², which is multiplied during the summer months.
  It is particularly popular with British, Irish and Scandinavian tourists and has a large British expatriate population.
  Areas of the town are spotted with older high-rise residential buildings and hotels but height limits on new developments and a significant number of original old town properties have kept the town centre much more open than other popular resorts such as Benidorm and Fuengirola.
  As the name Coast of the Sun implies, Torremolinos enjoys one of the best climates in Europe.
context_section_description: Archaeological finds including human bones, tools, and pottery prove that the Torremolinos area was settled as early as the Neolithic Age. Some remnants are neanderthalians and dated 150,000 years old by radiocarbon dating.
  According to the Egyptian Greek geographer Ptolemy, the Phoenicians had founded here a colony named Saduce, but the Romans are the most likely to have founded the current town, as shown by findings of edifices and a necropolis (from whose size it has been deduced that the settlement had around 2,000 inhabitants). They also built the road joining Cadiz with Málaga, passing through Torremolinos.
  With the Moorish conquest of Spain, the mills, from which the town takes its name (meaning "Tower of the Mills"), were introduced. However, at the time the population was reduced; the tower was built by the Nasrid rulers of Granada starting from 1300. After the fall of Granada, the town remained subject to North African pirate attacks which lasted from the 18th century; during the War of Spanish Succession, the town was attacked by an Anglo-Dutch flotilla under the British admiral George Rooke and almost entirely destroyed. A document dated 1769 lists a town population of 106.
  The mills and the city were rebuilt in the early 20th century, but the mill industry started to decline in the 1920s. It was largely replaced by an increasing tourist interest from 1928, particularly British visitors. Hotel Pez Espada opened in 1960. The first gay bar in Spain, Toni's Bar, was founded in Torremolinos in 1962. The Spanish regime reacted to the free lifestyle of the city with arrests of homosexuals and other repressions during the 1970s.
  Torremolinos first appeared on the map of the Ensenada's Marques in 1748. 
  The name comes from the words Torre (Tower) and Molino (Mill). Water mills covered all this area of which only one survives (Molino de Inca) and one tower which forms part of a restaurant. 
  Historians believe that moulded stones discovered at beaches and mountains in Torremolinos indicate the existence of the village 150000 years ago. Further evidence of its pre-history are nine skulls, some bones, clay pots, axe heads and arrows, ornaments of necklaces and bracelets, a ring and some animal bones discovered in the excavations of the caves: cueva del Tesoro (treasure cave), cueva tapada (cover cave), cueva del encanto (charm cave), cueva del tejón (badger cave).
  The study of these items places them at the Neolithic in the Quaternary period, around 5.000 years before Christ at the period when man learned to cultivate, the land. It is estimated that the skeletons found at the caves and at the cape of Torremolinos were 1.5 or 1.6 meters tall (4’9 ft. or 5’2 ft.).
caption: Stone bench in Torremolinos
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