Location: Ensenada
Date Established: 1900
Date Ceased Operations: 1981
Annual Sugar Production
Average Annual Production: 84,789 Tons
Best Production Year: 1934/152,244 Tons
Family Ownership: None
Corporate ownership: South Porto Rico Sugar Company

The first company incorporated in New Jersey regarding the organization of this sugar mill was The Guanica Land Co.  The South Porto Rico Sugar Co. (SPRSC), the key company behind this sugar mill was incorporated in New Jersey on November 15, 1900 with an initial capital of $1.6 million, sum which was increased to $3 million in 1901.  Other related companies also incorporated in New Jersey at the same time were Guanica Centrale, Ensenada Estate, Bernal Estate and Santa Rita Estate.

• South Porto Rico Sugar Co. - incorporated "to acquire, purchase, sell, lease, mortgage...lands suitable for the growing of sugarcane and other tropicall products, to acquire, sell, lease, mortgage and otherwise dispose of mills, factories, centrals, machinery...for the manufacture of sugar."  It was also authorized to purchase and acquire shares of the capital stock of associations or corporations engaged in the cultivation, manufacture or transportation of sugar and the sugarcane.

• Guanica Land Co. - held contracts for the acquisition of about 4,000 acres of land and a franchise for the use of water from Guanica Lake  and for the construction and operation of a private railway and wharf.

• Guanica Centrale - organized to grow and manufacture sugar in Puerto Rico, it held colonos contract for grinding sugarcane grown in about 500 acres of land near Guanica Lake.

• Encenada Estate - organized to hold lands and franchises in Puerto Rico, on June 7, 1901 acquired the contracts and franchises held by the Guanica Land Co.   

• Bernal Estate - held contracts for leased lands.

• Santa Rita Estate - organized to hold lands in Puerto Rico, it held contracts for the acquisition of of about 2,000 acres with dwellings and factory buildings and leases of about 2,700 acres of adjoining lands. 

Incorporators of the SPRSC knew about the opportunities in Puerto Rico from Edmund Pavenstedt Jr., one of its incorporators.  His father,  Edmund Pavenstedt Sr. owned Central Los Caños from 1866 until his death in 1891 when Pavenstedt Jr. became its manager.  They were also familiar with Puerto Rico from their business relationship with the German Vice-Consul in Ponce Henry C. Fritze and the German Consul in San Juan Karl H. Lundt, partnes in the merchant banking firm Fritze, Lundt & Co., the largest sugar exporting firm o the island at the time.  Fritze, Lundt & Co. was established in Mayagüez in 1892 to continue the business of Kraemer & Co. where Karl H. Lundt was a shareholder.  

On the SPRSC Articles of Incorporation, Henry C. Fritze was President, Julius C. Umbach, a member of Fritze, Lundt & Co., was Vice President and Frank Ayer Dillingham (1870-1941), attorney at Rounds & Dillingham was Secretay/Treasurer.  On June 7, 1901 the Board of Directors elected William Schall Jr, President; John E. Berwind, Vicepresident, Frank A. Dillingham, Secretary and Edmund Pavenstedt, Treasurer.  Dillingham and Pavenstedt were elected to serve as an executive committee in charge of Puerto Rico opertations and Henry C. Fritze to serve as General Manager of the Guanica Centrale.  Rounds & Dillingham was appointed as General Counsel and the Wall Street invetment banking firm Muller, Schall & Co. was authorized to subscribe a preferred stock issue of $1,498,000.

Since late in the 1800s, Muller, Schall & Co. and Fritze, Lundt & Co. had a close banking relationship.  Muller, Schall & Co. was also behind the organization in 1899 of the American Colonial Bank of Porto Rico in San Juan of which William Schall was President at the same time he was President of the SPRSC.  A  picture of the American Colonial Bank of Porto Rico building is photographed in the PR Architecture page.  In 1903 Fritze, Lundt & Co. brokered half of the island's sugar production mainly because of its close relationship with German born Arthur Donner who was Treasurer and Director of the American Sugar Refining Company or the "Sugar Trust". 

The construction of the Guanica Centrale was not the first on on the island built by mainland investors.  The organizers of the SPRSC waited for the approval by Congress of free entry of Puerto Rican products to the US markets before establishing the largest sugar mill ever built on the island and at the time the second largest in the world.  

​The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer of September 14, 1901 reports; "The South Porto Rico Sugar Company is the title of a new concern organized with a capital of $3,000,000 for the purpose of acquiring 4,000 acres of lands in Guanica, on the south side of Porto Rico.  A sugar factory having a capacity of 1,600 tons of cane a day is to be erected.  Contracts for the equipment, which will cost not far short of $1,000,000 will be given out within the next two weeks.  Hugh Kelly, of No. 71 Wall Street, is designing the sugar house."

 
​Its first Operations Manager was Harry Garnett, who came from the British Guiana's sugar industry.  He left after one year to handle the startup at Central Preston in Cuba.  Adrian J. Grief was then appointed manager in charge of operations and under his leadership Guanica Centrale expanded its railway lines and more than doubled its grinding capacity.  Grief resigned in 1914 possibly due to the ill fated acquisition of Central Fortuna and a decline in profits.  He was replaced by French T. Maxwell, up to that point fabrication superintendent. 

At least five members of the initial Board of Directors of the SPRSC were of German extraction; William Schall Jr., Henry C. Fritze, Edmund Pavenstedt, Rudolph Keppler and Julius A. Stursberg.  The German influence started to change when in 1905 Fritze, his PR born wife Nieves Toro Pasarell and their three children moved to Hamburg.  During the WWI years, the German-American capitalists that organized the sugar mill were replaced due to the anti German sentiment surrounding the war and the expansion of J. P. Morgan & Co. into the sugar business.  

There was a close relationship between Guanica Centrale and Bankers Trust of NY itself a "House of Morgan" company.  Horace Havemeyer, son of Henry O. Havemeyer the founder of the Sugar Trust, was elected to the SPRSC Board of Directors in 1916 representing Bankers Trust.  Seward Prosser, the third President of Bankers Trust between 1914 and 1923, was Board Member of the SPRSC from 1918 to 1922.  His replacement was Albert A. Tilney (1868-1937), Bankers Trust Vice-president and President succeeding Seward Prosser who served on the Board until his death.   

Early in its development, SPRSC expansion plans included operations in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.  In July 1908,  the SPRSC acquisition of Central Fortuna owned by Compagnie Francaise Des Sucreires De Porto Rico for $1,750,000 was at the time the biggest sugar estate transaction on the island.  Plans also included the 1910 lease of the Bianchi family owned Central Pagán in Añasco and some 2,500 acres of cultivated land for $75,000 per year for 15 years.  In 1911 the SPRSC acquired 20,000 acres of land in the town of La Romana in the Dominican Republic.  Until 1917 when construction of Central Romana was finished, the sugarcane harvested at its lands in the Domincan Republic was brought daily by sea and processed at Guanica Centrale.  Central Romana was owned by the South Porto Rico Sugar Co. until 1967 when Gulf+Western became its major stockholder.  Since 1984 it has been owned by the Grupo Fanjul led by Alfonso and José (Pepe) Fanjul.

Over time, the corporate structure changed with the consolidation and addition of new corporate entities.  All these maneuvers made in light of the 500 acre limitation for corporations included in the Foraker Act.  In 1917, a corporate reorganization took place that transfered the Guanica and Fortuna sugar factories and all manufacturing operations to a new South Porto Rico Sugar Co., incorporated in Puerto Rico and all the land, leases and agricultural business to Russell & Co., a partnership organized under the laws of Puerto Rico, who assumed all the business previously conducted by the Guanica Land Co., Santa Rita Estate, Bernal Estate and Encenada Estate. 

Guanica Centrale came to be the second largest sugar mill in the world after Central Chaparra in Cuba and the largest sugar mill in Puerto Rico, at one point processing approximately 10% of all the sugar produced on the island.  In 1917 the SPRSC ranked 349 on the list of the 500 largest US industrials.  As was the case with Central Aguirre, a "corporate" town was created around the sugar mill which included homes, a hospital, a church and a hotel which is still in use.  Having a deep water dock in Guanica Bay allowed for easy loading of ships transporting sugar and molasses to the United States.

Despite all the efforts made to circumvent the 500 Acre limitation stated above, the SPRSC was sued by the government in the 1930s, as were most other sugar mills on the island, when the government of Puerto Rico decided to enforce the law.  As a result, the sugarcane growing aspect of the business was taken out of corporate supervision thereby losing control of the quality and optimum sugar yield of the sugarcane processed.  

In 1970, the Puerto Rico Land Authority acquired 435 acres of land in Ensenada and the sugar mill for $3,600,000 which was substantially below market value.  In 1973 the Land Authority transfered ownership of the sugar mill to the Sugar Corporation of Puerto Rico who in 1977 ceased to operate the sugar refinery established in 1930.  The government continued to operate the sugar mill at approximately ⅓ of its capacity until November 4, 1981 when it finally shut down.  Its massive amount of machinery and equipment was sold in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

Pictures in the second gallery below were taken in 2014 except the last four aerial pictures which were taken in February 2024 by Jaime Luis Montilla of prphotoadventures.com.