Entrance to the Popenoe House
This is the entrance to the Popenoe House, a colonial mansion restored by Wilson Popenoe from the United Fruit Company. An intimate glimpse into the house and its rich history and rebirth was done on the May issue Revue Magazine(page 10) as PDF download. The house was built in 1634 by a supreme court judge originally from Spain. Over the years it was abandoned and fell into disrepair, until finally in 1932, it was bought and restored by Doctor Wilson Popenoe, a United Fruit Company scientist… (text from virtual tourist ).
Sidenotes:
The United Fruit Company played a malevolent role in the history of Guatemala. The Guatemalan government of Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was toppled by covert action of the United States government in 1954, after the directors of UFCO had lobbied to the Truman and Eisenhower administrations (text from Wikipedia).
Miguel Ángel Asturias, a 1967 Nobel Prize in literature, wrote The Banana Trilogy, three books (novels) about what the UFCO did in Central America. The books are Viento Fuerte (The Cyclone, 1950), El papa verde (The Green Pope, 1954) and Los ojos de los enterrados (The Eyes of the Interred, 1960). These are very good reads and they can be fount at Amazon.
Also, the local hearsay is that Mr. Popenoe took the local avocado variant to California and from it the Hass avocado emerged.
Now, there are many more stories from this tiny town and I will them to you as I come across the photos that serve as trampoline.
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I’ve thought a lot of you and your blog the last...
June 12th, 2006
I looked on the net and saw pictures it is the Joshua tree, said they grow in the desert south west in california.
June 12th, 2006
i have read that The United FRuit Company just about ruined all of centeral America in the sence the UFC got very rich and the peoples of Gulamata reaped very little from their efforts.
June 12th, 2006
Thanks, Rudy. Good post. Beware globalization.
June 12th, 2006
Hi rudy, you are doing such a great work, your photos bring locals feelings with them.Perfect.
June 12th, 2006
I thank you all for your comments. Your comments motivate me to do better.
June 14th, 2006
Excellent post and great photos. You make me miss Antigua a lot. Keep it up man!
October 2nd, 2006
Excellent site. I am going back to my hometown Antigua after 7 years of College in California. I love what yo’ve done with the pictures and the comments are awesome
August 20th, 2007
The California Avocado is From La Antigua Guatemala…
It is official: The California avocado if from La Antigua Guatemala. I had mentioned a couple of times the antigüeños are known as Panzas Verdes (green bellies) because of all the avocados they eat (see trivia 2) and that one Wilson Popenoe took the …