Puerto Castilla is a village in the Colón Department of

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

located approximately north of Trujillo. This port city on the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexic ...

(

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

) was the one-time site of the United Fruit Company's Castilla Division which specialized in the growth, cultivation and shipments of the Gros Michel

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", disting ...

. This division was closed in the late 1930s as a result of '

Panama disease Panama disease (or Fusarium wilt) is a plant disease that infects banana plants (''Musa'' spp.). It is a wilting disease caused by the fungus ''Fusarium oxysporum'' f. sp. ''cubense'' (Foc). The pathogen is resistant to fungicides and its cont ...

', a blight on the roots of the banana. The port city, and its population were moved east on the peninsula in the 1940s when a small naval base was established there for a PBY Catalina seaplane base. During World War II the seaplane base supported military operations including surveillance and security in conjunction with Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was believed that German naval forces planned an attack on the Panama Canal causing bases like Puerto Castilla and many others along the coast toward Panama to be on high alert. Puerto Castilla is now a native fishing village of about six hundred residents. West of the village the site of a Honduran naval base, as well as the site of a container port for Dole fresh fruit products. Vast African Oil Palm plantations now dot the area. Puerto Castilla lies on the south side of a peninsula sheltering Trujillo Bay. It is a deep-water port which has future possibility for development of a major port for the republic. An original hospital building (recently renovated by the Honduran Navy for an educational center) and an old barracks are the last remaining evidence of the abandoned United Fruit presence. A fence with guarded entrance now restricts casual traffic into the Port area, controlled by the Honduran Port Authority—ENP-Empresa Nacional Portuaria.

Leigh Richardson Leigh Richardson (26 April 1924 – 27 October 2008) was a Honduran-born Belizean politician. Richardson served as the leader of the People's United Party in the 1950s, and also as mayor of Belize City. Early life Richardson was born to Belizea ...

, a leading figure in the early

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...

an independence movement, was born in Puerto Castilla in 1924.

References

Port settlements in Central America Port cities in the Caribbean Populated places in Honduras Colón Department (Honduras) {{Honduras-geo-stub