A solo 36 kilometers from Havana, in the municipality of Bauta, province of Artemisa, lie the remains of what was once one of the most prosperous towns in Cuba before 1959: Cayo La Rosa, an industrial hub that housed the largest non-sugar textile factory on the island and today is merely a shadow of its former self.
This is confirmed by a report from the YouTuber known as JSant TV, who traveled through the town and explored its history to showcase what little remains of the once-thriving community.
The story begins in 1919, when American entrepreneur Dayton Hedges arrived in Cuba and discovered a small cay located within the Ariguanabo lagoon, which was then the largest in the country.
In 1927, he bought the land with an ambitious purpose: to build a textile factory that would completely transform the area.
The September 22, 1931 marked the inauguration of the Ariguanabo Textile Company S.A., which was considered the most important in America at the time and one of the main ones in the world.
The factory employed between 1,500 and 2,500 workers and produced everything from underwear to suits and dresses. Its flagship product, the denim "Ariguanabo 32", was recognized as the second highest quality in the world.
"Ariguanabo was the most important clothing brand in America and one of the most significant in the world, as it catered to national demand and a large portion of that in the United States," describes the channel JSant TV in the video that uncovered this story.
But Hedges did not just build a factory: he created an entire model town. The workers lived in wooden houses without paying rent, electricity, or basic services.
They worked six hours a day, had paid vacations, and had access to credit to purchase homes and cars.
The complex featured a private airfield, a hospital, daycare centers, a fire station, a baseball field, and a textile polytechnic.
The privilege extended even beyond the keys. An old resident recalls how the system worked: “I would go shopping at a store in Havana. I’d say, look, I want to pay on credit. I belong to Ariguanabo, and I would show my ID. They would say, no, hold on, wait. You choose, and we’ll take it to you.”
That world disappeared with the Revolution. The textile factory was nationalized on August 6, 1960, along with other industries in the municipality of Bauta.
Under state administration, it continued to operate for decades, but the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Special Period of the 1990s accelerated its decline until a final closure.
"Currently, nothing remains of the textile company. In 1959, it was nationalized, and over the years, it endured a gradual decline until its definitive closure in the 1990s," notes JSant TV.
From splendor to bankruptcy
The old workshops were converted into storage facilities. The private airfield was transformed into housing.
And the Ariguanabo lagoon, which provided geographical identity to the area, was drained through agricultural drainage systems during that same decade, physically erasing the natural environment that had named the islet.
A study from the Institute of Tropical Geography of Cuba documents how the body of water diminished from about 10 square kilometers in the 19th century to a near-total disappearance later on.
The only things that withstand time are the houses where high-ranking American and Cuban engineers lived. “These houses are beautiful and a vivid testament to a forgotten history of a small town in Artemisa,” concludes JSant TV.
Cuban researcher Denys San Jorge has been documenting this heritage for years with over 10,000 photographs, objects, and archival publications. He is currently working on an unpublished novel titled Avenida Dayton Hedges and a documentary called Cayo La Rosa: a textile paradise, efforts to preserve the memory of a place that the dictatorship turned into oblivion.
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