Known as the in­dus­tri­al cap­i­tal of the coun­try, the coastal city of San Fer­nan­do has al­ways been a place of grandeur. Chris­tened “Ana­pari­ma” by the Amerindi­an peo­ple, San Fer­nan­do has al­ways been a place for trade and busi­ness.

The splen­dour of the city ris­es from the peaks of the San Fer­nan­do Hill and ex­tends from the north by the Guaracara Riv­er, the south by the Oropouche Riv­er, the east by the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way, and the west by the Gulf of Paria.

Con­nect­ing the for­mer sug­ar­cane hills of the Na­pari­mas, San Fer­nan­do has been one of the ma­jor gate­ways to the oil-rich re­gions of the south­west and the petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­tries of Point Lisas where LNG, iron, steel and oth­er alu­mini­um prod­ucts and fer­til­iz­ers are man­u­fac­tured.

Recog­nised as the most pop­u­lous city (55, 419), San Fer­nan­do has re­tained many ves­tiges of tra­di­tion­al life, even though it has lost some of its ar­chi­tec­tur­al mag­nif­i­cence.

There are still shoe­mak­ers on the streets fix­ing bro­ken heels and soles while you wait. Hawk­ers ply their trade loud­ly and you can still find the oc­ca­sion­al char­ac­ter try­ing to sell what ap­pears to be hand­fuls of gold jew­el­ry. A vi­o­lin­ist skil­ful­ly plays his in­stru­ment on High Street and Chancery Lane in re­turn for do­na­tions. The San Fer­nan­di­an pride is strong with one res­i­dent Michael Thorne pro­mot­ing San Fer­nan­do un­der his blog What South Say.

The home­less peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do share in the bus­tle of ac­tiv­i­ty and are gen­er­al­ly well-cared for. Every week they get hair­cuts, show­ers, clothes, shoes and meals at the King’s Wharf soup kitchen, the brain child of for­mer may­or Kaz­im Ho­sein. Those who do not par­take of the kitchen utilise the city’s pub­lic ameni­ties and many sleep on the Prom­e­nade and in the bench­es of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

They bathe from the sprin­klers nour­ish­ing the plants out­side the Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal. At least once a day, Good Samar­i­tans feed the home­less on Lord Street, Mu­cu­rapo Street and Har­ris Prom­e­nade.

Since the re­cruit­ment of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, San Fer­nan­do has en­joyed fre­quent po­lice pa­trols and this has served to curb the num­ber of re­port­ed pick­pock­et­ing and purse snatch­ing.

Keep­ing the city clean has al­ways been of para­mount im­por­tance and it was be­cause of these clean-up ef­forts cou­pled with de­vel­op­men­tal pro­grammes that many el­e­gant 19th cen­tu­ry great hous­es have been torn down, strip­ping the city of some of its ar­chi­tec­tur­al grandeur.

Among the build­ings lost were the Ten­ants Es­tate Great House which was dis­man­tled in 1983 to make way for the ex­ten­sion of St Joseph’s Con­vent, es­tab­lished since 1882. This Great House is said to be one of the largest wood­en hous­es in San Fer­nan­do, based on an in­ter­view done by the late his­to­ri­an Louis B Homer.

Al­so bull­dozed was the el­e­gant Pied­mont Cot­tage lo­cat­ed at the foot of San Fer­nan­do Hill on La Coulee Street, San Fer­nan­do, which was owned by the Robert Lech­mere Gup­py fam­i­ly. On Cha­con Street, an­oth­er 19th cen­tu­ry man­sion owned by the Whar­ton fam­i­ly was al­so bull­dozed.

How­ev­er, un­der the cur­rent May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, the city has start­ed pre­serv­ing the last ves­tiges of its his­toric build­ings. Among these are the Gen­er­al Stores, Hap­py Cor­ner Ho­tel, Thor­pes Garage, Ten­ants Build­ing, Fish Mar­ket and the Old Post Of­fice which is now be­ing called the Plaza San Car­los His­tor­i­cal Dis­trict. The build­ings on Har­ris Prom­e­nade have al­so been des­ig­nat­ed as a her­itage site by the Na­tion­al Trust. The city still has sev­er­al struc­tures with the tra­di­tion­al wood­work fix­tures of the nine­teenth cen­turies.

Vin­tage cars of the city have al­so been well-pre­served thanks to the ef­forts of San Fer­nan­do busi­ness­man Brij Ma­haraj, who has an­oth­er 14 an­tique cars, sev­en mo­tor­cy­cles, and about 36 more ve­hi­cles be­ing re­paired. Some of the vin­tage cars are be­ing dis­played at the Brij Ma­haraj Mo­tor Mu­se­um and Her­itage Col­lec­tion, Vista­bel­la, San Fer­nan­do. The col­lec­tion in­cludes the coun­try’s old­est work­ing car, a Mod­el T Ford, with a man­u­fac­tur­er date of 1917-18. The late his­to­ri­an An­ge­lo Bisses­sar who wrote about Ma­haraj’s col­lec­tion was among those who fought des­per­ate­ly to pre­serve San Fer­nan­do’s lost lega­cies.

In mem­o­ry of his con­tri­bu­tion, the San Fer­nan­do Her­itage Trust was set up in 2016 as a means of re­search­ing, restor­ing and pre­serv­ing the re­main­ing her­itage sites of the city.

SAN FER­NAN­DO HIS­TOR­I­CAL TIME­LINE

1595-Sir Wal­ter Raleigh en­coun­ters “Ana­pari­ma”

1792-San Fer­nan­do is chris­tened “San Fer­nan­do de Na­pari­ma”

1818-Fire de­stroys the en­tire city

1845-Ar­rival of SS La­dy Mc Leod.

1853-San Fer­nan­do el­e­vat­ed to a Bor­ough

1854-A wood­en Town Hall is erect­ed.

1864-Ar­rival of Cana­di­an Pres­by­ter­ian Mis­sion­ar­ies

1866-First oil well drilled in San Fer­nan­do

1870-First sit­ting of the Supreme Court in San Fer­nan­do

1871-Open­ing of a Mis­sion School on Cipero Street by the Pres­by­te­ri­ans

1872-Open­ing of the Susamachar “Glad Tid­ings” Pres­by­ter­ian Church

1880-Vis­it to San Fer­nan­do by Princes Al­bert and George

1882-Rail ser­vice be­tween San Fer­nan­do and Princes Town is in­au­gu­rat­ed.

1882-Hosay Mas­sacre at Mon Re­pos.

1896-Bor­ough light­ed by kerosene lamps.

1898-Tele­phone sys­tem in­stalled

1912-For­ma­tion of Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School.

1919-Open­ing of Carnegie Free Li­brary

1922-For­ma­tion of a branch of Co­terie of So­cial Work­ers.

1923-Bor­ough re­ceived elec­tric­i­ty

1924- New Fish Mar­ket Built

1927-Sal­va­tion Army Hall opened on Cof­fee Street.

1928-New Abat­toir opened.

1930-Gift of Skin­ner Park giv­en to San Fer­nan­di­ans

1930-First bus ser­vice in­au­gu­rat­ed in the Bor­ough.

1930-Bound­aries of the Bor­ough ex­tend­ed; Lay­ing of the cor­ner­stone for new Town Hall; Supreme Court Con­struct­ed

1931-New Town Hall opened

1932-Ded­i­ca­tion of Susamachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church.

1939-Con­struc­tion of the Mon Re­pos Hous­ing Scheme.

1940-Con­struc­tion of San Fer­nan­do By-Pass and Con­struc­tion of Grant Memo­r­i­al School

1948-San Fer­nan­do born Rod­ney Wilkes, na­tion­al weightlifter and T&T first Olympic (sil­ver) medal­ist.

1952-The stat­ue of Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi was brought from In­dia and erect­ed on Har­ris Prom­e­nade

1955-New Hos­pi­tal of­fi­cial­ly opened in Feb­ru­ary

1956-Build­ing of Pleas­antville Hous­ing Es­tate

1962-Open­ing of Na­pari­ma Bowl.

1966-Chi­nese Com­mu­ni­ty of San Fer­nan­do pre­sent­ed The Li­brary Clock to the Peo­ple of

San Fer­nan­do.

1975-Con­struc­tion of San Fer­nan­do Boys RC School.

1988-San Fer­nan­do of­fi­cial­ly de­clared Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sec­ond city.

2012-Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) South is opened

(http://www.caribbean­mem­o­rypro­ject.com/san-fer­nan­do—trinidad-and-to­ba­go-archives.html)