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The Calixto Garcia Birth House and its History
On August 4th, 1839 in this house, Calixto Garcia Iñiguez was born, who ended up becoming chief of the Liberator Army in the East of Cuba during the 30 Years Independence War (1868 – 1898). Calixto Garcia lived there few years, since his parents moved to the house of his mother’s aunt in the Marti Street and in which he lived until he was approximately 14 years old when they moved to Jiguani. During the mediatized Republic, part of the Calixto Garcia ´s house was trade market and the rest had use as housing. With the course of the years it was transformed and divided in several houses and lawyers’ offices. The patio and great part of the house were destroyed to build other modern constructions.
Architectural Description of the Calixto Garcia Birth House
Keeping in mind some architectural elements that are still conserved, such as the doors of the late XVIII century and the windows with lathed balustrades, it can be established that this property was built at the end of the XVIII century. The walls of the whole construction are made of bricks, which are seated with mud sustained by huge wood sticks. This element stands out the primitive character of the construction and the Mudejar Style so used in the colonial architecture. The facade of 25,5 meters of extension of the is of a remarkable simplicity. It is finished off by eaves in rowlock. In it four windows stand out composed by two leaves of quadroons with shutters and lathed balustrades of wood and the main door of Spaniard Style with shutters. The main body of the house is divided from the second body. The cover or roof of this first body is of Mudejar Style, of four laps elaborated with square alfardas and with grooves and suspenders rhyming couplets. In the corners of the cover there also square grooves. In the second body the roof is of hanging type, built with plump alfardas. On the other hand, the interior doors that give entrance to the gallery and the external ones of the rest of the construction are Spaniard, elaborated with flat boards and finish off details. The interior windows are of 2 leaves of evolved quadroons. Formed by a single board, as much in the doors as in the windows they are sustained by means of hinges and they conserve the system of closing of the time. The interior gallery that gives to the patio is of hanging type, of plump alfarda, sustained by wooden right feet with half-boots worked in scrolls. In the corner that forms the union of the two galleries the half-boot it appears double, forming four sides, that which offers certain beauty to the gallery.
The Calixto Garcia Birth House as Museum
In 1974, the regional Government delivered part of this valuable historical relic with the objective that once restored it was transformed into a museum memorial where the figure and work of the Mayor General Calixto Garcia Iñiguez was honored. On July of 1979, the Birth House of Calixto Garcia was again rejuvenated and it was carried out a new assembly of simple form that reflected by means of pictures, documents and museum objects the biography, military facts and this Cuban revolutionary figure of the XIX century anti-imperialist ideology. On January 18th 1986 the total restoration of the property was concluded. In it, the exhibition rooms were enlarged and a Wars of Independence Center of Information opened, which stores the relative documentation to this stage and that it possesses a wide and valuable bibliography that already has several years of edition. There you can find biographies, monographs, rehearsals and political files of important personalities. It also has excellent newspapers and magazines file with publications of the topic. The Birth House of Calixto Garcia was declared as National Monument by the National Commission of Monuments on October 10th 1978. Such a declaration took place in the city of Holguin on December 11th of that same year, when being completed the 80 anniversary of his death.
