"Primicias": A list of "Firsts" for Cárdenas

Since its founding, Cárdenas has been a place of many "firsts" for Cuba, America and the world. This fact flowed naturally from the historical progressiveness and work ethic of the city and its citizens. Cárdenas came to be known in Cuba as "The City of Firts". Some of these are more or less important to the rest of the Cuban population, but all of them are, and will always be, important and a source of pride for all Cardenenses. Here is a list of firsts for C&aacuterdenas:

• The first railroad in Matanzas Province and the second in all the Spanish colonies, (June 24, 1840), having been inaugurated two years after the one from Havana to Bejucal. The line extended eighteen Brittish miles (30 km.) from Cárdenas to the corral at Soledad de Bemba, bringing extraordinary importance to that area, which became the Jovellanos railroad hub, and launching a great period of growth, development and wealth for Cárdenas.
• Cárdenas was the first place on Cuban soil over which the national flag flew, dubbing Cárdenas as "The Banner City", ("Ciudad Bandera") (May 19, 1850); SEE THE INVITATION to Cárdenas' celebrations of the Flag's Centennial in 1950.
• Cuba's first sugar refinery (1851);
• The first statue of Christopher Columbus in the Americas (1862);
• The first electrical plant for the provision of public lighting in Cuba (September, 1889). It was second in the world, behind New York;
• Cárdenas was the first Cuban city to be bombarded at the start of the Spanish-American war (May 11, 1898). (This is when the United States entered the war of independence that was already being fought between the Cuban rebels and Spain.) A projectile that was fired from the American gunboat "Winslow" is/was conserved encrusted in the building occupied by the Cardenas Electric Company on the corner of Calzada Street and Linea Avenue;
  1. Cárdenas was also the first place over which the American Flag flew in Cuba;
  2. In the same battle, the only American Naval Officer to die in the war was killed. That officer was Ensign Worth Bagley, a native of North Carolina, to whom there is monument dedicated in the City of Raleigh, on the grounds of that state's capitol. Ensign Bagley was the son of the Clerk of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, who left an extensive collection of the Bagley family's correspondence to the University of North Carolina.
     A special thank you to Kirstie Hodge of N.C. for the wonderful photos of the Bagley Monument. - A complete page to come!
• The first mausoleum in Cuba for the remains of heroes of the war of independence against Spain (1899). The remains of 238 heroes rest there;
• The first public museum in Cuba (December, 1899);
• The first statue erected in honor of Cuba's first president, Tomás Estrada Palma;
• First "Pro-Streets Committee" in Cuba (1939): A civic association whose purpose was the improvement of the physical plant and traffic flow of the city's streets;
• The first Cuban-designed and built glider flies over Cárdenas (December, 1945);
• First bagasse paper plant in Cuba (mid 1950's): Bagasse is the waste pulp product of pressed sugar cane;
• First act of defiance against the Castro regime, where the population went into the streets clanging their pots and pans (1962);
• First Cuban city with its own Web site on the INTERNET (December 24, 1995).

Other historical facts:
Although not rising to the level of first in Cuba or America

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• First sugar mill in the Cárdenas agricultural area (1830);
• The seat of local colonial government is transferred to Cárdenas from Lagunillas (1839);
• The "Commission for Local Primary Instruction" is established (1844),
  followed by the Post-Primary Commission (1849);
• The Cardenas Parish Church is founded (1846);
• The first newspaper in Cárdenas "La Hoja Suelta" (1848);
• The Cárdenas marketplace is established (1859);
• The Cárdenas aqueduct is inaugurated (1871);
• The first fire station is constructed (1873);
• Industrias Archabala is founded (1878);
• The Cárdenas trolley begins to service the 4 neighborhoods of the city (1911);
• The Arechabala Theatre opens (1919) with the best acoustics in Cuba;
• The new electrical plant is powered up on Calvo Avenue and Salud Street (1925);

A special thanks to Miguel Angel Garrote and José Esteban Fernández Llebrez
for their help in compiling these lists.

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