For many years some Bocatorians, lovers of history and culture of the Archipelago of Bocas del Toro, had the vision of having a Museum of Bocas del Toro, a place located in the heart of the city of the same name, where to know the ancient and modern history of this beautiful region.
Also for many years the vision for this objective was to preserve some of the most beautiful houses built, some of them more than 100 years ago, in the time of the banana splendor of the archipelago.
These houses, with a poorly-called Caribbean architecture, are still today a reflection of the way of life at that time, where the heat and the typical rains of these lands were remedied with spacious, high-ceilinged, airy houses to refresh the environment and where the insects were repelled (more or less) using different tricks.
And we say "badly called Caribbean" because they are no more than the approximate reproduction of the houses of the great planters of cotton and tobacco of the Southeast of the USA.
The same model has been used by sugarcane planters in Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas and Bermuda, by banana planters in different Central American countries, and by some rubber planters in northern Brazil, among others.
Locally, one does not perceive a desire, an attempt to recover lost time, to save what is still left. The devastation continues: new and unnecessary supermarkets open every year in the places where these jewels of bocatorean architecture existed.
Although some of these old structures have been preserved and in some cases restored, such as the Cheng family's residence on Avenida Sur and the Bahia Hotel on Calle 3ra, former administrative headquarters of the United Fruit Co ., there are others that need to be saved from abandonment and oblivion.
So, what better idea than to fulfill two dreams of those who love Bocas del Toro and we do not want it to become a place without personality, without history, that to contribute to preserve our architecture and have the longed-for Museum of Bocas del Toro, a real attraction for tourism?
