Location: Cayey
Date Established: 1911
Date Ceased Operations: 1967
Annual production Graph
Average Annual Production: 10,243 Tons
Best Production Year: 1953/22,39 Tons
Family Ownership: N/A
Corporate Ownership: Cayey Sugar Co., United Porto Rican Sugar Co., Eastern Sugar Associates, Fajardo Eastern Sugar Associates, C. Brewer Puerto Rico, Inc.

Central Cayey originated from the expansion and modernization of Hacienda Lucia located in Barrio Vegas of Cayey. In 1774 Guayama born brothers León Vázquez Vázquez ( -ca.1843) and Antonio Vázquez Vázquez owned four hundred thirty cuerdas extending through Barrio Guavate, Barrio Beatriz and Barrio Vegas of Cayey. It appears their family were also sugar farmers in Guayama and owned Hacienda Tuna. In 1809 the brothers established a sugarcane hacienda with a manor house, a blood driven mill and a Jamaican Train to process sugracane grown in their land. The hacienda was named in honor of León and his wife María Antonia Collazo Morales (1775- ), Lucía Vazquez Collazo. Upon Leon’s death the hacienda was inherited by his daughter Lucía and its administration passed on to her husband, Spanish immigrant from El Ferrol, Galicia, Manuel Nuñez Romeu (1810-1889). The exact location of Hacienda Lucía was discovered in an archaeological study made by the PR Department of Public Works related to the construction of a connector between PR-1, PR-52 and PR-743 just east of where the sugar mill was erected.

Spanish immigrants from Vioño, Cantabria, Spain Manuel (1856-1885), Fausto and Mateo (1850-1920) Rucabado Argumosa arrived in Puerto Rico in 1862 and promptly became involved in a succession of merchant houses specializing in growing tobacco and the financing of tobacco growers under the business names Rucabado Hnos. & Cia. and Rucabado & Cia.  In the 1890s they ventured into cigar manufacturing and started La Flor de Cayey factory.  Portela & Lomba, later Portela & Cia. was a partnership established by Jose Portela that owned the cigar factory La Ultramarina in San Juan, a large and well-known tobacco manufacturer that provided cigars to the Royal Spanish House.

Rucabado & Cia. and Portela & Cia, joined forces after the end of the Spanish American War in 1898 under a new partnership named Rucabado & Portela manufacturers of cigars and cigarettes in San Juan at a factory named La Colectiva.  In 1899 the operations of Rucabado & Portela were acquired by the Porto Rican-American Tobacco Co., at the time a subsidiary the American Tobacco Co. This turned the attention of Mateo Rucabado to sugarcane.

Cayey Sugar Co. was incorporated by Mateo Rucabado Argumosa, Ramón Aboy Benitez, Aboy Benitez brother-in-law Luis Manuel Cintrón Sanchez (1848-1917), Ramón Aboy Benitez son-in-law Atty. Antonio Perez Pierret (1883-1937), Juan Carlos McCormick owner of Central Machete and Eduardo Georgetti owner of Central Plazuela.  Aboy, Cintrón & Georgetti were partners in the firm Georgetti, Cintrón, Aboy & Co., sugar brokers and factory representatives of sugar manufacuring related machinery.

The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer in its edition of January 27, 1912 reports that "The Cayey Sugar Company central which was built last year is situated very close to the center of the island...This Cayey central is quite a well designed plant and was one of the highest in rendiment...The house was designed by Mr. Geo. P. Anderson who has since made his headquarters in Porto Rico where he has been retained as consulting engineer for a syndicate controlling some half dozen of the important centrals." The syndicate referred by The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer may have been that of Georgetti, Cintrón, Aboy & Co. for which firm Anderson was a consultant. 

In the July 8, 1916 edition, a letter from Central Cayey's Superintendent E. P. Moore is published  where he highlights the production of white granulated sugar from cane juice at the central stating; "We have led the island in low purity of our final molasses.  Our crystallizer work has been splendid, our average purity of final molasses will be under 24%.  Possibly some of your readers may be interested in knowing that not only in Louisiana, but in Porto Rico, white granulated sugar can be successfully produced directly from the cane juice." 

In 1918 Ramón Aboy was President and majority shareholder of Cayey Sugar Co. and Mateo Rucabado Argumosa was Vicepresident and member of its Board of Directors.  In 1922 the person in charge was Carlos Benitez Santana (1855-1922), first cousin of Ramón Aboy Benitez and son of Eusebio Benitez Guzmán whose family related enterprise Benitez Sugar Co. owned Central Arcadia and Central Playa Grande in Vieques.  

In an article on the June 2, 1923 edition of The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer listing the quantity of sugarcane processed for the 1922 grinding season, it is stated that the Cayey Sugar Co. was under receivership.  In 1926 Central Cayey was one of the five sugar mills acquired by the recently established United Porto Rican Sugar Co.  Production numbers for Central Cayey do not show any production between 1923 and 1927.  Since it was in receivership at the end of the 1922 grinding season, it may very well be the case it did not operate during that period of time. 

As part of the United Porto Rican Sugar Corp. being put in receivership by a US District judge in 1933 at the petition of its main creditor the National City Bank of NY, ownership of Central Cayey was transferred to Eastern Sugar Associates, a Trust created by the National City Bank of NY who managed its operations and those of the other five* sugar mills it acquired until 1958 when Eastern Sugar Associates merged with the Fajardo Sugar Co. creating Fajardo Eastern Sugar Associates. 

Ownership of the sugar mill was again transferred in 1961 when Fajardo Eastern Sugar Associates was acquired by C. Brewer Puerto Rico, Inc., a subsidiary of C. Brewer & Co., a corporation that owned sugar mills in Hawaii.  In August 1966 C. Brewer Puerto Rico, Inc. announced that it would cease operations in Puerto Rico at the end of the grinding season.  In March 1967 it was announced that all of C. Brewer Puerto Rico, Inc. assets including Central Cayey would be acquired by the Government of Puerto Rico through the Sugar Corporation of Puerto Rico.  The 1966-67 grinding season would be the last one for Central Cayey.

Today remains of Central Cayey lie within the property formerly used as a wholesale distribution center by a now defunct furniture company.  The only pictures we could take were from outside the fence of this complex.  We were told the structures behind the smoke stack, which date from the sugar mill days, are being used by an auto mechanic repair shop.

The drone pictures below were taken in the summer of 2021 by Carlos Alemán who allowed us to publish them here.  From above, it appears the structure closest to the chimney may be of recent construction but the large, rectangular warehouse structure next to it seems to be from the sugar mill days.  In the last of the drone pictures, the location of the sugar mill in a valley up in the mountain region can be appreciated.

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* Central Defensa closed and was dismantled in 1939