Location: Salinas
Date Established: 1930
Date Ceased Operations: 1947
Annual Production Graph
Average Annual Production: 7,784 Tons
Best Production Year: 1942/10,219 Tons
Family Ownership: Godreau
Corporate Ownership: Godreau, Godreau & Co.

Michel Godreau was a Frenchman from the island of Guadeloupe, French West Indies who emigrated to Salinas ca. 1830 and in 1839 married Maria Monica Lanausse of Salinas of which marriage seven children were born.  One of them, Julio Godreau Lanausse (1842-1933) and his nephew Miguel Candido Godreau Duffaut (1886-1963), the son of Elias Godreau Lanausse (1841-1915), established Godreau, Godreau & Co. to own and operate Central Caribe in Salinas. Central Caribe first grinding season was 1931 when it produced 6,784 m. t. of sugar and it was considered one of the most modern and efficient sugar mills in Puerto Rico.  It last grinding season was 1946-47.  It owned some four thousand acres of land and ground sugarcane grown by a handful of colonos most of them controlled by the Godreau family.  One of the colonos was Godreau & Co. S en C owned by Guillermo Godreau Manatou (1873-1936) and José Godreau Manatou (1872-1964) who operated Hacienda Providencia in Salinas.

The Central Aguirre Associates Annual Report to Stockholders for the year ended July 31, 1947 states: "During the year we have purchased, dismantled and sold the Central Caribe, a factory owned by Godreau, Godreau & Co. built in 1930 to grind their own and nearby cane, all of which had previously come to us.  With the closing of this factory, our cane supply is increased by some 75,000 tons."  

Page thirty seven of the May 1947 edition of the SUGAR  publication reports: "La Joya is the name given to the new sugar mill constructed in Haltunchen, Campeche, Mexico, which has acquired all the machinery from Central Caribe of Salinas, Puerto Rico, with a capacity of 650 tons of cane per 24 hours.  At La Joya it is intended to make the capacity 1,000 tons per 24 hours.  Central Caribe was owned by Godreau, Godreau & Co.  It was erected in 1930 under contract with the Porto Rico Iron Works, and it was considered the leading Puerto Rican sugar mill for its yield and efficiency."​  

Pictured below is the sugar mill in its heydays.  In 1919 Miguel Candido Godreau Duffaut and his wife Leonina Godreau Bonilla (1900- ), the daughter of Arturo Godreau Duffaut, commissioned Julio Conesa Renovales (1871-1930) with the design of a house at Calle Reina #146 in Ponce which still stands and is photographed below.  This house was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.  Being a standing structure related to its owners, we have included a page for this sugar mill though no remains of the sugar mill itself remain.