Calle de Rafael Salgado
Remembers Rafael Salgado Cuesta, olive-oil businessman, president of the Banco Mercantil and of the Madrid Chamber of Commerce in the first half of the twentieth century.
Rafael Salgado Cuesta took the reins of the family olive-oil business in 1921, a firm opened in 1875 as a modest shop on the calle de las Infantas. He bought groves and a mill in Jaén to supply a growing demand and gave his surname to an oil brand still sold today.
His work did not stop at oil. He founded an insurance company, led the Banco Mercantil, was among the founders of the Madrid Chamber of Commerce —which he came to chair— and took part in the early days of cinema in Spain. His name is also tied to the financing of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium.
The street runs through Hispanoamérica, a neighbourhood of Chamartín built up mostly from the mid-1970s. At its southwestern end stands the Santiago Bernabéu stadium.