Calle Coronel Blanco

The street takes its name from a colonel surnamed Blanco whose identity cannot be established with certainty. It lies in the Fuente del Berro neighbourhood (Salamanca district, postcode 28028), an area of early-20th-century residential development with several streets dedicated to military figures and to the political and social circles of the day.

Calle Coronel Blanco is one of those streets whose name hides an unsolved mystery. It lies in the Fuente del Berro neighbourhood, which grew as a residential area under the first Affordable Housing Act of 1911. There the Iturbe colonies were born, led by Gregorio Iturbe and designed by architect Enrique Pfitz, with streets dedicated to military figures, educators and local characters. A few metres away runs Calle de Rufino Blanco, which honours an educator and bibliographer. However much they share a surname, they do not honour the same person. The most likely colonel is Ramón Blanco y Erenas, who rose to Captain General and governed Cuba and the Philippines. But the detail that clouds the attribution is plain: he reached the rank of captain general and held the title of Marquis of Peña Plata, so he would hardly have been signposted with the modest rank of colonel. The curious thing is that the puzzle resists the experts: neither Répide nor the municipal street map explains where the name came from. Until someone digs into the files of Madrid’s City Archive, the colonel remains a ghost with a surname and no face.

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