Colon Cemetery, Havana
 Main Gate (2007). |
|
| Details | |
|---|---|
| Year established | 1876 |
| Location | Vedado, Havana |
| Country | Cuba |
| Size | 140 acres (57 ha) |
| Number of graves | 800,000 |
| Number of interments | over 1 million |
The Colon Cemetery or more fully in the Spanish language Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón was founded in 1876 in the Vedado neighbourhood of Havana, Cuba on top of Espada Cemetery. Named for Christopher Columbus, the 140 acre (57 ha) cemetery is noted for its many elaborately sculpted memorials. It is estimated that today the cemetery has more than 500 major mausoleums, chapels, and family vaults.
Colon Cemetery has a 75-foot (23 m)-high monument to the firefighters who lost their lives in the great fire of May 17, 1890. As baseball is a leading sport in Cuba, the cemetery has two monuments to baseball players from the Cuban League. The first was erected in 1942 and the second in 1951 for members of the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame.
In February 1898, the recovered bodies of sailors who died on the United States Navy battleship Maine were interred in the Colon Cemetery. In December 1899 the bodies were disinterred and brought back to the United States for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. [1]
With more than 800,000 graves and 1 million interments, space in the Colon Cemetery is currently at a premium and as such after three years remains are removed from their tombs, boxed and placed in a storage building.
[edit] Notable interments
- Santiago Álvarez (1919–1998), filmmaker
- Manuel Arteaga y Betancourt, Roman Catholic Cardinal
- Beatriz Azurduy Palacios (1952–2003), filmmaker
- Hubert de Blanck (1856–1932), composer
- José Raúl Capablanca (1888–1942), world chess champion
- Federico Capdevila (?-1898), Lieutenant Colonel of Spanish Army who defended the cuban students of Medicine in 1871
- Alejo Carpentier (1904–1980), novelist
- Eduardo Chibás (1907–1951), politician
- Juan Chabás (1910–1954), author
- Ibrahim Ferrer (1927–2005), musician
- Candelaria Figueredo (1852–1914), patriot in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain
- José Miguel Gómez (1858–1921), president of Cuba
- Máximo Gómez (1836–1905), Dominican military hero
- Ruben Gonzalez (1919–2003), Cuban Pianist from Buena Vista Social Club
- Nicolás Guillén (1902–1989), poet
- Nicolás Guillén Landrián (1938–2003), Filmmaker and painter
- Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (1928–1996), filmmaker
- Harrison E. Havens (1837–1916), United States Congressman
- Alberto Korda (1928–2001), photographer
- José Lezama Lima (1910–1976), writer, poet
- Dulce María Loynaz (1902–1997), poet, novelist
- Dolf Luque (1890–1957), Major League Baseball starting pitcher
- Mary McCarthy Gomez Cueto (1900–2009), Havana socialite and musician
- Armando Marsans (1887–1960) Major League Baseball outfielder
- William Alexander Morgan (1928–1961), American adventurer
- Fernando Ortiz (1881–1969), ethnomusicologist
- German Pinelli (1907–1996), journalist, actor
- Chano Pozo (1915–1948), musician, pioneer of Afrocuban jazz
- Juan Ríus Rivera (1848–1924), Puerto Rican military hero
- Lola Rodríguez de Tió (1848–1924), Puerto Rican poetess.Car
- Dr. Francisco Taquechel (1869–1955), Notable doctor, founder (1898) and director of the Farmacia Taquechel, Old Havana
[edit] External links
|
|||||||||||||||||
Coordinates: 23°07′23″N 82°23′55″W / 23.12306°N 82.39861°W
