Long before the introduction of telephone service and telephone books in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, private publishers, and governments published so-called "city directories. They served much the same purpose that the "Yellow Pages" do today of enabling businesses, to advertise their goods and services to the public and to publish in a convenient book form the names of government officials, civil servants and other professionals.

PRHGS has acquired copies of two such directories from the Library of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez:

 Directorio Comercial é Industrial de la Isla de Puerto Rico para 1894

 Guia General de la Isla de Puerto Rico con el Almanaque correspondiente al Año de 1879

Since there are literally thousands of names in both directories we are going to re publish them on our web site them on a piecemeal, town by town basis, over the course of many months, rather than publish the data all at once, in their entirety. The process will begin with the 1894 directory listings for the town of Adjuntas and the other towns will follow in subsequent months. When the 1894 directory is completed the 1879 one will follow:

Don José Blanch of Mayagüez who served as Vice-counsel of Haiti compiled the 1894 directory. Apparently don José solicited the names from the mayors of the various towns and transcribed the data. The names of the persons or business names published here are as they appear in the book. There is no additional information regarding the various parties. ADJUNTAS

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Confiteria

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Herrerias y Construcciones de Carros para Trasportes

Solano Gonzalez