These photographs were among the first (if not the very first) photos of Puerto Rico placed on the Web. The year must have been 1994 or maybe even late 1993.
You may think that since these photographs were placed on the Internet near the Web's beginning, they must have been placed on it by technical personnel working in and on computer networks at the time. Almost nobody else had heard of the Web then. Well, you're right! The photos were placed on a server owned by Hewlett Packard Corporation in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico by some of the engineers there, on a voluntary basis and for cultural reasons I'm sure. One name that comes to mind is José Pietri, who was listed as being the contact for any problems with the server. (The Internet was not allowed to be commercial in the early days, by the way.)
I did take out the two photos that they had of the Arecibo Observatory because they weren't that good to begin with and they showed the Observatory as it was a very long time ago. I have taken a few recent photos from the Observatory's Web site (http://www.naic.edu) and inserted them here. With the intention of adding some humor, I have included a picture with moving UFOs flying over the Observatory ("Radiotelescopio 2").
At any rate these were, in all likelihood, the first photos ever of Puerto Rico placed on the World Wide Web. The original server has long disappeared and I only made a mirror copy for posterity.
The photographs are arranged by township (pueblo):
Arecibo Barranquitas Cabo Rojo Camuy Cayey Guayanilla Jayuya Lajas Luquillo Manatí Maricao Maunabo Mayagüez Ponce Quebradillas Rio Piedras San Juan Utuado Vieques "Raytraces" Other
Prepared by Tony Alicea on Three Kings Day 1999.
I also have a modern Puerto Rican music page in Spanish. |