Location: Ponce
Date Established: 1877
Date Ceased Operations: 1914
Annual Production Graph: N/a
Average Annual Production: N/A
Best Production Year: 1914/10,000 Tons
Family Ownership: Gallart
Corporate Ownership: Compaignie Francaise Des Sucreires De Porto Rico, South Porto Rico Sugar Company

 In 1834 Hacienda Fortuna was owned by Venezuela born Manuel Antonio del Toro Silva (1776-1836) and Spanish immigrant from Cambrils, Catalonia, Esteban Domenech who also owned the nearby Hacienda Unión.  In 1841 it was owned by Domenech & Guilbee a partnership formed by Esteban Domenech and Jaime Guilbee Fenerign, a British Immigrant who came to Puerto Rico in 1821 and established residence in Ponce in 1829.  

Guilbee was hired by Domenech and del Toro to install a windmill at Hacienda Fortuna, which mill proved to be inefficient.  History is not clear if he was retained as administrator or in any other capacity, but after the death of Manuel Antonio del Toro Silva (1796-1836) he married his widow Rosa Loudon Gouden, thus becoming 25% owner of Hacienda Fortuna, participation he later increased.   

Sometime between the 1850s and 1873, the owners of Hacienda Fortuna were Jaime Guilbee Fenerign and Manuel Ferrer Barral ( -1881), also owner of Haciendas Cintrona, Hacienda Potala and Hacienda Pastillo in Juana Diaz.  Ferrer arrived in Puerto Rico ca. 1837 and in 1853 married Manuela Gandía Gerardino in Ponce.  His sister-in-law Josefa Gandía Gerardino was married to Luis del Toro Silva (1800- ), brother of Manuel Antonio. Therefore there was a family relationship between Manuel Antonio del Toro Silva and Manuel Ferrer Barral.

Hacienda Fortuna was acquired in 1877, the year Manuel Ferrer returned to live in Spain, by Juan Forgas Bayó (1810-1885), who resided in Barcelona and who had ownership in a Spanish shipping company.  His legal representative on the island was his Spanish immigrant nephew from La Bisbal d'Empordà, Girona, Catalonia José Gallart Forgas (1838-1898).  Gallart Forgas arrived in Puerto Rico and eventually owned Hacienda Luciana, Hacienda Cristina, Hacienda Serrano and Reparada Sugar Mill in Ponce, named Reparada in honor of his mother Reparada Forgas Bayó. 

In 1877 under Gallart Forgas leadership, Hacienda Fortuna was converted into a central sugar mill.  It was Gallart who in 1885 commissioned Francisco Oller, a very well known local artist to do the oil painting of Fortuna shown below, which is on exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.  In 1885 Gallart returned to Spain and established residence at 10 Rambla de Cataluña in Barcelona.  In 1895 he built a summer home in the outskirts of Barcelona known as Casa Gallart or Palau de Les Heures pictured below.  

Upon his death in 1898, Gallart heirs included his second wife Mercedes Folch Parellada whom he married in 1888 after the death of his first wife Julia Dubocq Roux in 1885.  The estate continued to operate the sugar mill until 1904 when it was acquired by the Compagnie des Sucreries de Porto Rico.  This company was owned by a group of Frenchmen headed by M. Manoury whose name was universally well known in the sugar industry and included Mateo Lucchetti Tristani (1848-1917), the son of Corsican immigrant Jean Michel Lucheti Terami (1798-1853) and Ponce born Eudosia Tristani Rodriguez (1822-1875).  Luchetti was 1st cousin of Mateo Lucchetti Piccioni (1825-1905) the owner of Hacienda Quebrada Palmas in Naguabo.  By 1905, its French owners had installed the first portable track and light engine in Puerto Rico.  They also were the first mill to use the Naudet Process which combined milling, difusion and clarification in one operation.  The process though, appeared not to be successfull due to high fuel cost.  

In July 1909 Central Fortuna was acquired by the South Porto Rico Sugar Co. (SPRSC), owners of Guanica Centrale, from the Compagnie des Sucreries de Porto Rico for $1,750,000, at the time the biggest sugar estate transaction in Puerto Rico.  The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer in its edition of December 4, 1909 states that "a cyclone has been doing business around the island and as a result the 1910 cane crop has suffered severly.  While the cyclone itself did not approach the island its effects have been felt heavily and floods have done a great deal of damage.  Hacienda Fortuna of Ponce, suffered severely, the water in the Central attaining a depth of over a meter, and nearly all of the livestock was drowned, all the small bridges around the Central washed away and a goodly part of its railroad line washed out."  In that same edition it reported that Guanica Central "is utilizing a goodly part of the machinery of the old Fortuna estate which was in A-1 condition, and all of the cane formerly ground at Fortuna will be ground this year at Guanica.  Central Fortuna, however, is being refitted throughout and expects to do its own grinding in 1911."  

The SPRSC plans at Central Fortuna included the production of white sugar using the dry-lime process of clarification patented by Moriz Weinrich.  An experimental plant  was built under the supervision of French T. Maxwell, fabrication superintendent a Guanica Centrale.  In order to increase the sugarcane available for grinding, Guanica Central General Manager Adrian J. Grief wanted to lease land adjacent to Central Fortuna and divert its sugarcane to the factory. Hubert Edson who was Superintendent in Guanica and was given Central Fortuna’s Manager responsibilities, did not approve the transaction due to the high cost to lease the additional land. Eventually Mr. Grief ordered the experiment abandoned.  The purchase of Central Fortuna by the SPRSC turned out to be a disaster and ended up with the closure of Central Fortuna in 1914.  Its sugarcane was then processed at Guanica Centrale until 1921, when as the result of labor disputes, they were forced to sell the sugarcane harvested in the lands of Fortuna to Central Aguirre.  Fortuna's machinery was dismantled in 1914 and shipped to the Dominican Republic where it was eventually installed at Central Romana. 

Central Fortuna was only about 2¼ miles from Central Mercedita which was a much larger sugar mill.  It was also only about 1⅛ mile from Central Boca Chica both at one time owned by the Serrallés family.  Today, the only remains from Fortuna's days as a hacienda is the brick smoke stack pictured below, which is approximately 800 m south of the smoke stack of the Central Sugar mill.  Also very close to Hacienda and Central Fortuna was Hacienda Union.  The last three drone pictures were taken by and made available by Carlos Alemán, in the last one you can see Union ruins in the foreground and the chimney of Central Fortuna at a distance. 

We have no production data for Central Fortuna but understand its best production year was 1914, its last year in operation when it produced  approximately 10,000 tons of sugar.