Calle de Oñate

Behind this name is a town in the Alto Deba, in Gipuzkoa, wedged between hills. The place name comes from Basque and old documents tie it to its terrain: a spot at the foot of a mountain pass, full of hills. For centuries Oñate had a powerful life of its own, a lordship and later a county of the Guevara family, and it did not join Gipuzkoa until 1845. In 1542 a university was founded there, the only one the Basque Country had until it closed in 1901. The street belongs to the Castillejos district, in Tetuán, born of working-class growth along the road to France. From the 1860 African war it mostly inherited names, and the street map filled with battles and commanders from that campaign. When these fringes joined Madrid, many duplicate streets had to be renamed, and in that batch came northern towns like Oñate. On Calle de Oñate itself stands a brick house from the late nineteenth century, one of the oldest buildings in the district.