Hacienda El Vapor was located slightly over ½ mile east of Hacienda Buxó.  Its remains lie on the north bank of the Rio Grande de Loiza in Barrio Quebrada, the northernmost barrio of the municipality of San Lorenzo.  The remains consist of only the chimney which is forty meters tall.   

The booklet Los Pueblos de la Región Centro Oriental y su Historia (Siglos XIX y XX) published by the Turabo University and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, contains a section dedicated to document the powerful elite of San Lorenzo between 1873 and 1883.  It does not make reference to this plantation nor could we decipher its owner from the information therein.  The 1898 Commercial Directory of the American Republics compiled by the Bureau of the American Republics, lists the following sugar plantation owners in the town of Hato Grande (San Lorenzo) Puerto Rico: Sebastián Aponte, José Buxó Bazart, Pedro Machín, Francisco Agapito Rodriguez, Sucesores de Soto y Tous and Jaime Vilá.

In the PR Sugar Mills & Trapiches No Remains page we have listed two sugar factories in San Lorenzo for which there is no information available except their owners.  Those are Hacienda Buena Vista owned by Pedro Machín and Hacienda Santa Ana owned by J.C. & Quintana Soto.  The 1910 Census lists Pedro Machín Flores (1834- ) born in San Lorenzo of Spanish parents as a sugar plantation owner in barrio Quemados (Este).  Due to the location of Hacienda Buena Vista in Barrio Quemados which is south of the town of San Lorenzo, we do not think that Machin was owner of Hacienda El Vapor which is located in Barrio Quebrada, north of the town of San Lorenzo.

In her book Santa Juana y Mano Manca, Ivonne Acosta states that in 1909 the Rio Grande de Loiza flooded the area and destroyed several truss bridges built to transport sugarcane from various colonos in San Lorenzo to Central Santa Juana.  She lists the affected colonos as José Buxó, Buxó Sobrino, Arturo Buxó, Aponte Sanchez & Cia. and Julio B. Janer.  Still standing just northwest of the chimney is a 23.5 meter long truss bridge over Quebrada Matías which seems to have been one of the truss bridges referred to by Acosta in her book.  She does not mention this hacienda by name or its then owner as it is located on the south side of the river and did not use the referred bridge.

Although we have found information of plantation owners in the San Lorenzo area as stated above, identifying the owner or owners and years of operation of this sugar factory from those sources has not been possible.  By elimination, possible owners of this hacienda have been identified as Jose Tous Coll and his wife Josefa Soto Hernandez, the parents of notable lawyer and politician Jose Tous Soto (1874-1933), José B. Janer, Messrs. Aponte, Sanchez & Cia. and Sebastian Aponte Rotger (1854- ).  There was another Sebastian Aponte at the time; Sebastian Aponte Sanchez married to Josefina Buxó Villafane, but he was an officer at the Puerto Rico Leaf Tobacco Co.

In a  communication with Vilma Buxó, current owner of the remains of Hacienda Buxó, she mentioned that to the best of her recollection Jaime Vilá, died in a car accident ca. 1970, owned a sugar estate up the river from Hacienda Buxó called Hacienda El Vapor. The death certificate of Jaime Manuel Vilá Tous (1918-1968) states he died in a car accident on December 30, 1968.  The certificate states he was an "Agricultor-Finca de Caña" or a sugar plantation owner.  Jaime Manuel Vilá Tous was the son of Luis Vilá Santana (1886-1967) and Antonia Tous Soto (1894- ).  Vilá Santana is reported in the 1920 and 1930 Census Records as "Agricultor-Finca de Caña" living in Yabucoa and in the 1940 Census as "Industrial-Fincas" also living in Yabucoa.  Based on this information, there is no doubt this property belonged to Luis Vilá Santana and then to his son Jaime Vilá Tous.

The contribution of Carlos Alemán regarding the existence of these ruins is acknowledged and appreciated, he also took the drone photos below in October 2022 and graciously allowed us to include them in this webpage.