Calle de Bustamante

Until 1899 this street was called calle de Puerto Rico. When Spain lost its last colonies in 1898, the city council erased the names of overseas territories from the map and replaced them with those of men killed in that war. That is how Joaquín Bustamante y Quevedo arrived here, a naval officer from Cantabria born in 1847. Bustamante tied his name to the sea seen as a laboratory: he designed an electric torpedo and a fixed mine that the Navy adopted under his surname, the “Bustamante torpedo.” In 1898, as chief of staff of Cervera’s squadron, he was trapped in Santiago de Cuba. He argued for sailing out into open water rather than being destroyed in port, went ashore leading the sailors, and was mortally wounded on 1 July on the heights of San Juan.