Central Mercedita

Hacienda Mercedita was a 300-acre (120 ha) sugarcane plantation in Ponce, Puerto Rico, founded in 1861, by Juan Serrallés Colón. Today Hacienda Mercedita no longer grows sugarcane and its lands are instead used for growing mangoes, grasses, landscape plants and palms, coconut palms, bananas, and seeds.

The Hacienda was the administrative center of the large sugarcane mill called Central Mercedita as well as that of its cane sugar refinery plant which packaged the Snow White brand sugar at its nearby packaging plant. Hacienda Mercedita was also the site of origin of a rum production in 1865 that became the successful Destilería Serrallés rum distillery producing Don Q and other spirits.Central Mercedita closed down in December 1994, and its sugar mill site is abandoned and in ruins. The Serrallés rum distillery, however, is an expanding and successful company still operating from the same original location, in barrio Vayas, southeast of the intersection of routes PR-10 and PR-52.Central Mercedita, where the local sugar cane was processed, is now owned by Puerto Rico's Autoridad de Tierras (English: Land Authority). Though Hacienda Mercedita was located in a different barrio, Sabanetas, its location was next to the rum distillery, the two being separated only by La Esperanza street (PR-5506).

At the beginning of the 19th century, Don Sebastian Serrallés, a Spaniard from Begur, Girona, Catalonia, Spain, settled in Ponce and founded Hacienda Teresa. Following on the footsteps of his father, Juan Serrallés Colón founded a sugarcane hacienda (plantation) in 1861 in Ponce and named it Hacienda Mercedita, in honor of his wife Mercedes Perez (1845–1922). The Hacienda quickly developed into a major sugar factory called Central Mercedita. According to Encyclopedia Puerto Rico, in 1862, just one year after its start-up, the sugar cane production at the Central Mercedita was so excellent that its owner started buying out neighboring sugar mills, including La Laurel, La Fe, Destierro, Bronce, Mallorquinas, Barrancas, La Teresa, Union, Mattei, Margarita, Cintrona, and rented the Cayo Verde sugar mill. Hacienda Mercedita produced sugar from sugarcane and packaged it at its nearby Snow White Sugar Company on the spacious flatlands complex of Central Mercedita, founded in 1949. The land area increased from the original 300 acres to the area currently (February 2015) bounded in the east by the municipality of Juana Diaz, in the north by barrio Coto Laurel, in the west by hacienda Mercedita proper at what is currently Destileria Serralles, and in the south by the Caribbean Sea.

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