Location: Barceloneta
Date Established: 1896
Date Ceased Operations: 1963
Annual Production Graph
Average Annual Production: 22,707 Tons
Best Production Year: 1956/34,937 Tons
Family Ownership: Balseiro, Georgetti

 Before it became a sugar mill, Central Plazuela was known as Hacienda Pajas, owned by British Citizen and London native R. C. Reynolds who died in Manati on  September 6, 1850 without any descendants.  In his last will and testament dated September 4, 1850, Reynolds named Cornelio Harcourt Kortright as his sole and only heir. As the sole and only heir of the estate of R. C. Reynolds, Cornelius H. Kortright became sole and only owner of Hacienda Pajas.  Cornelius H. Kortright (1818-1866) was the son of St. Croix native Cornelius Kortright ( -1826) who arrived in Puerto Rico in 1818 with his wife Luisa Kenney whom he had married in St. Croix in 1810 and three minor children; Charles Edward Keith (1813- ), William Alexander (1816- ) and Julia Maria (1817- ). That same year (1818) he acquired Hacienda Isleta in Bayamón together with St. Kitts native Gaspar Howes and on October 20, 1819 was granted his Domicile Letter. Shortly after his death, Hacienda Isleta was sold as it is reported that by 1830 it was owned by Irish immigrant Juan Morrison and English immigrant Francisco Watlington, who had received his letter of domicile on October 30, 1923, was its overseer.

Cornelius H. Kortright was born in St. Croix in 1918 and was baptized in Bayamón in 1919 where his father had settled at Hacienda Isleta. His professional career before inheriting Hacienda Pajas in 1850 is unclear, but upon becoming its owner he was fully involved in the management and development of Hacienda Pajas until his death in 1866. Hacienda Pajas was inherited by his Mayagüez born wife and cousin Eduarda Kenney Hewitt (1825-1897), of which marriage two children were born; Cornelius Harcourt Sydney Kortright (1847- ) and Elisa Kortright (1851-1906) who died single and intestate in San Juan. If Eduarda continued operating Hacienda Pajas and for how long is unknown, it is reported though, that when she leased Hacienda Pajas in 1889 it was in a deteriorated state and not in operation.

Rafael Balseiro Maceira (1833-1902) was a Spanish immigrant from Galicia who arrived in Puerto Rico at a very young age in 1836.  He was always involved in agriculture having at different times owned sugar lands in Arecibo, Vega Baja and Barceloneta.  In 1888, his daughter Julia Aurea Balseiro Dávila (1869-1938) married Eduardo Georgetti Fernandez-Vanga (1866-1937) in a Catholic ceremony held at the Nuestra Señora del Rosario de la Vega church in Vega Baja. In 1917 Georgetti commissioned the design of a house on Ponce de Leon Avenue in San Juan which later was known as The Georgetti Mansion.  More can be read about this house on the Architect Antonin Nechodoma page in this website.  Although it should have never been allowed to be demolished, the house was leveled in 1971.  The site was used as a parking lot for many years.

In 1886, Balseiro and his soon to be son-in-law Georgetti, acquired the firm “Florida Agrícola“ and rebranded it as the merchant firm “Sociedad Agricola Industrial de Balseiro & Georgetti” better known as “Balseiro & Georgetti”.  In 1889, Balseiro & Gerogetti leased Hacienda Pajas from Eduarda Kortright and in 1894 acquired it outright.  In 1896, new machinery was added converting the hacienda into a central sugar mill named Central Plazuela.  In 1911 a new steel building was constructed for the boiling house where new vacuum pans, boilers, crystalizers and centrifugals were installed.

The Plazuela Sugar Co. was incorporated in 1907.  Among its initial shareholders were Georgetti who figured as President and his wife, his brothers and sisters-in-law Rafael Balseiro Dávila, Agustín Balseiro Correa, Manuel Balseiro Correa, Juana Balseiro Correa, Carmen Balseiro Correa, Mercedes Balseiro Davila and husband and Georgetti's cousin Epifanio Fernandez-Vanga Martinez and Ana M. Balseiro Davila and husband José Ruiz Soler.  Also shareholders were Rafael Balseiro Maceira's widow Aurea Davila Santana (1851-1912) and Gerónimo Vallecillo.

Georgetti was one of the most influential sugar men of the early 1900s in Puerto Rico.  He was also a well respected politician having been Mayor of Barceloneta from 1897 to 1898 and member of the Puerto Rican Senate from 1917 to 1921.  Central Plazuela was his main operation but at one point in time or another, he also had interests in various other central sugar mills including Central Camuy, Central Cambalache,  Central Carmen, Central Los Caños and Central Plata.  Georgetti was in charge of field operations, his brothers Agustín and Rafael were in charge of the factory and accounting respectively.

Aside from running Central Plazuela, in 1911 Georgetti was organizer in the firm Georgetti, Cintrón, Aboy & Co. which engaged financing sugar enterprises and in buying and selling sugar and sugar machinery.  The firm's purpose was to compete Fritz, Lundt & Co. and L. W. & P Armstrong which at the time were brokering practically all the sugar produced on the island.  The firm did not succeed and by 1914 had been dissolved.

Supposedly, as told by a former employee, during the sugar mill days the cone shaped structure pictured below was the sugar mill's laboratory, which structure is currently not in use and locked due to its poor and unsafe condition.  This cone shaped structure was the windmill that powered the mill to grind sugarcane during Hacienda Pajas days.  Only five sugar factory wind mills remain today at Hacienda Vives, Hacienda Carlota, Hacienda Santa Ana and Hacienda Berdecía.  

The Puerto Rico Land Authority acquired Central Plazuela in 1946 and operated it until 1963 when it was dismantled and its machinery acquired for $1.8 million by Pansales Trading Corp. of Panama who reportedly sold it to Frontier Sugar in the Philipines.  ​The site where the sugar mill was located is now being used by the Barceloneta Municipal Government.