The biggest learning I received about this City of Open Doors occurred when I was assigned the task of editing Manizales 150 years (1998), a history of the Caldense capital written by a dozen authors and which circulated in fascicles with LA PATRIA for the sesquicentennial. One chapter was titled: “The silver was here.”
No wonder, before the Bank of the Republic existed, coffee exports were made directly from here and foreign currency arrived in hard currency to this city or in goods to be marketed. Manizales once had bank branches of national and international entities and some offices were created with its own capital.
According to historian Pedro Felipe Hoyos Körbel, just the 1920s, a century ago, was decisive for the local leadership to begin to lose weight, as circumstances came together that ended up affecting the local economy and the Manizaleños’ ability to influence in national decisions.
In those years the aerial cable and the railway arrived, and roads began to be connected. The 1920s saw the creation of the Bank of the Republic, an important decision for the country, but one that directly affected the possibility of trading coffee and receiving dividends without intermediaries. Then came the creation of the National Federation of Coffee Growers, another vital decision for the national economy, but it subtracted the specific weight that this territory had in decisions about exports in Colombia.
It was also the decade of the three fires that practically devastated Manizales. The first in 1922, the most disastrous between July 3 and 4, 1925 when 25 blocks were destroyed. A third fire occurred in 1927, which consumed the cathedral.
That time was lived by Antonio Arango Gutiérrez, a figure from the lineage of city leaders who, educated in Bogotá, returned to Manizales to work in the public sector and in financial entities. His knowledge of economics allowed him to intervene and write press articles with recommendations for the authorities in the city and the country. He also intervened with his knowledge in the reconstruction of the city, in settling a dispute with the electricity company and in the completion of the Cathedral. This was thanks to an ad honorem effort that he made to refinance the debt he had with interest forgiven.
In the book dedicated to this illustrious Manizale native, the author says: “Manizales was a banking capital that had large capital, moved part of the Colombian coffee business and had a good number of theorists who presented their ideas and assumed ministries or secretariats… “
Despite the popular belief about bankers, for the author, a human type emerged in Manizales: “the banker, a character who will play a preponderant role in the history of the city, which has the connotation of being exercised with discretion.”
Antonio Arango Gutiérrez, about whom this subtitled book is about, was part of that group. The biography of a Manizale banker. This discreet character was a leader in business creation and in the reactivation of charitable institutions such as the Public Improvement Society. He also in the defense of the Caldas Railway. Of him, Silvio Villegas said that he was the greatest possibility of statesmanship that the department had. The book talks about temperance and the love of a man from Manizale for his city.
This work is important for its historical value, because it portrays an era and its people, although a little disordered in the story and with some grammatical and printing oversights, they do not detract from its true value of telling us the life of a man, of a era, of a lineage and of a city. The accompanying images also give context to the reader. So read it, let’s get to know a little more about Manizales and its people and #Let’sTalkAboutBooks.
Underlined
- Manizales (…) was a place where the economics topic was always going to have excellent speakers immersed in practice and not lecturing from a teaching position.
- He liked action, and it was better to propose something than to wait for something to happen.
- Banking was technically born in Manizales.
- In those times the state was smaller and therefore the citizen had more space and more responsibilities.
- Everything revolved around coffee. This enriched the coffee grower and pickers directly and at the same time stimulated and sustained a trade.
