VALDÉS, VEUDI. (2023). NOTES AND RESEARCH – HISTORIAN CHRONICLER OF COZUMEL. INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY THE DIRECTORATE OF TOURISM AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF COZUMEL
The origins of Benito Juárez Park are consigned in the decree of creation of the town of Cozumel dated November 21, 1849, signed by the governor of Yucatán Miguel Barbachano y Tarrazo, in which it is established in one of its clauses to reserve space in the initial layout of the streets for the town hall, the school, the church, the military barracks and the central park.
Based on this delimitation of the park, the outlines of the first grid-shaped streets were born.
For more than 50 years, this space was only a meadow crossed by different paths and where animals grazed freely. During the second decade of the twentieth century, the government of the territory sent the Japanese Nakamura, who made the initial outline of the spaces for gardens, playgrounds and public spaces.
This layout remained without any progress and only had an obelisk in the center where the bust of Don Benito Juárez was installed. It was during the government of General Rafael E. Melgar, when the park was urbanized with playgrounds, benches and a central kiosk. These complemented the beautiful municipal public clock that has been in place since 1910.
Throughout the different territorial, state and municipal governments, it has suffered some modifications until the present that already incorporates the space that faces Rafael E. Melgar Avenue including the fountain of the conch shell or of the marine sunset.
