By Domingo Medina.| Calle de los Herradores, the longest in the historic center of La Laguna, begins at Plaza de San Cristóbal and Calle Barcelona, ending at the junction with Plaza del Doctor Olivera. Formerly it was known as the Camino that goes to Santa Cruz, and Calle de los Malteses. Also as Alfonso XIII, on the occasion of the visit that this king made on March 27, 1906 to La Laguna. During the dictatorship it was called General Franco, but the old name that lasted the longest was Los Mesones, because several innkeepers settled on this road, which was always very commercial.
The name that has remained to this day, that of Los Herradores, is due to the artisans of iron, coal and the forge, which, along with other trades, made this street one of the most popular in the city. Also because of the traffic that ran by carts, buses, buses and all kinds of vehicles that circulated in the direction of the North of the Island. Until November 14, 1956, the tram traveled through it, which left Santa Cruz for the station of the Plaza del Doctor Olivera and continued to Tacoronte. On the 15th of that same month, the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife decreed the suspension of the service after the very serious tram accident, which, losing its brakes, injured 33 people and a 16-year-old native of Las Mercedes who died. .
On the left side, as the street begins, is the well-known Casa Quintana, also called Casa Salazar Oraá. The name is due to the Canarian painter Cristóbal Hernández de Quintana (1651-1725), who lived there between 1692 and 1725. On the façade facing the current Barcelona street, and since the 18th century, there was a cross painted green and next to it a stone bench, where the passers-by who passed through this place rested. According to tradition, a man who had his fiancée killed died in this bank.
The Quintana brothers, who lived in the house next door, built a chapel known as “La Cruz Verde”, expiatory in nature. In the hermitage next to the Cross lined with silver hung four paintings by the painter Cristóbal Hernández de Quintana.
In 1812, the salt fish vendors who were provisionally on this street went to the Town Hall requesting to return to the stalls they had in Los Remedios square, after the reform, to which the public power refuses, allowing them to settle in a limited section of Los Herradores street (Ordinances of Tenerife).
Once you have passed the intersection with San Juan, on the right side is a magnificent building that the Frenchman Claudio Bigot had built in 1654. This house, like most, has been renovated over the centuries, although it maintains its original characteristics. original, such as the wooden balcony on the third floor that served as a barn. The three doors on the first floor and the three windows on the second are bordered by a stone border.
On the same side, in house number 64, Óscar Manuel Domínguez Palazón was born on January 3, 1906. He was the only son of the marriage formed by Antonio Andrés Domínguez and María Palazón Riquelme. Óscar Domínguez lived in this house with his family until he was eight years old, spending a few seasons in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and summering at his father’s house in Tacoronte. At the age of 12 he is sent by his parents as an intern in the annex of the Secondary Education Institute of La Laguna.
From 1928 until the death of his father in 1931, he moved to Paris to carry out administrative functions in the company of the fruit representative who works with his father. Óscar decides to return to Tenerife to manage the family business. In 1932 he returned to Paris, where he began his career as a design professional.
In 1937, Óscar Domínguez moved his residence to the Parisian neighborhood of “los artists” (Montparnasse), where he stood out as a surrealist painter within the group formed by figures such as Man Ray, Marcel Ducham, or Max Ernst. He also contacted artists like Dalí or Picasso. He held individual and collective exhibitions throughout Europe and America.
After obtaining French nationality in 1948, the Canarian painter culminated a decade of intense activity. Unfortunately, after his wife separated from him, his drinking problems worsened and on New Year’s Eve 1957 he ended up taking his own life. His mortal remains rest in the Parisian cemetery of Montparnasse.
In this street, in the 20th century, the gatherings that were held in the “back rooms of businesses” were very popular. Famous was that of Don Víctor Núñez, merchant, painter and politician in the hat and fur business founded in 1865, a trade that is still active today. In La Laguna it was said that the beloved bishop Don Domingo Pérez Cáceres came to participate in this gathering.
Very close to the previous one, in the well-known brass shop owned by Mr. Wenceslao Yanes González and his sons, where decorative elements were made by hand, with an anvil and forge, both for the interior and for home gardens, lampposts, sprinklers, buckets, etc. They also fixed all kinds of kitchen utensils, and soldered cauldrons, frying pans, and milk jugs. In this workshop, many people from La Laguna would gather around the after-meal meal, social gatherings who participated in them before beginning to work in their respective businesses, which were normally nearby.
A socialist veteran, after having suffered Franco’s repression, who expressed it when he was older by saying that he spent several years on “vacations” in Fyffes (rooms set up as a prison in Santa Cruz de Tenerife). He went to the aforementioned gathering every afternoon and carried a small cauldron wrapped in a newspaper, when they asked him what was in that package, he answered the following: “In case the Police stop me when I leave the gathering, I will tell you that I came to put a rivet on the cauldron”. Seniority or fear was a degree.
On the left side is the house of the Mustelier family, founded by Mr. Pedro Mustelier, consul of France, also of French origin. The 18th century house has a Baroque doorway and is very well preserved. The internal staircase is made of stone and barbusano bars, and has a patio with wooden columns. In this place there is currently a well-known restaurant.
On the same side and before reaching the alley of Maquila, is the well-known Casa Franco de Castilla from the 17th century, which was ordered to be built by Colonel Matías Franco de Castilla, trustee general of Tenerife. This building is framed in the Laguna Baroque style. It belonged to the Gortázar family and currently, after an extensive reform, it is destined for a notary. This building suffered a major fire that caused modifications to some of the original rooms.
Before the end of the street and on the left side, Dr. Olivera lived and died on December 12, 1918 in the house labeled number 99, who gives his name to the square where this important commercial street in the historic La Laguna case ends.
