Panama's canal punched Valparaíso's golden port age
Chile's Valparaíso—named for a Castilian Valparaíso de Arriba—is a Pacific commune, seaport, and naval base of about 284,938 people, tenth among Chilean communes. About 120 km from Santiago by road, it was a Magellan Strait stopover until the 1914 Panama Canal diverted ships and wealth fled the hills.
Picunche farmers were the first identifiable people on the bay. In 1536 the Santiaguillo, a supply ship for Diego de Almagro's expedition, anchored here, and its commander Juan de Saavedra named the place after his home village in Cuenca province; the local name had been Alimapu or Quintil. Through colonial times it stayed a hamlet of a few houses and a church, raided by Francis Drake in 1578 and by his cousin Richard Hawkins in 1594.
Independence transformed it. A merchant built Chile's first pier in 1810 and reclaimed so much land that the shoreline now sits five blocks farther out. In 1814 American and British warships fought offshore, and the USS Essex was beaten; its captain later renamed his Indiana hometown Valparaiso after the one naval battle he lost. The Chilean Navy has been headquartered here since 1817, and the liberating expedition to Peru sailed in 1820. El Mercurio de Valparaíso, founded in 1827, is the oldest Spanish-language newspaper still printing.
Supplying the California gold rush and serving ships bound around Cape Horn, the port drew Britons, Germans, French, Swiss and Italians. In 1840, 166 of the 287 ships at anchor were British, and their families settled Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción. Immigrants brought football, the Dissidents' Cemetery for non-Catholics and volunteer fire brigades, while the city gained Latin America's first telegraph line in 1852 and its first funicular in 1883. A Spanish fleet shelled the undefended port in 1866, and an earthquake on 16 August 1906 killed thousands.
Captains preferred the new Panama Canal after 1914, and the city lost its commerce and many rich families; San Antonio now moves more containers. Yet the hills revived as artists and tourists arrived between 2000 and 2015, and UNESCO listed the historic quarter in 2003. The National Congress has sat here since 1990, and copper and fruit exports plus cruise calls keep the docks working.
Source: Valparaíso
