Puerto Rico Highway 577 (PR-577) is a short tertiary''PRHTA Design Manual: Chapter 1, General Design Criteria.''
Departamento de Transportación y Obras Publicas de Puerto Rico. page 1-2. Accessed 9 May 2019. mountainous state road that connects

PR-143 Puerto Rico Highway 143 (PR-143) is a secondary highway that connects the town of Adjuntas to the town of Barranquitas. This roads extends from PR-123 to PR-162 along the Cordillera Central. Route description Heading east from Adjuntas, PR-1 ...

(also known as ''

Ruta Panorámica The ''Ruta Panorámica'' (Scenic Route), officially the ''Ruta Panorámica Luis Muñoz Marín'' (Luis Muñoz Marín Scenic Route), is a network of some 40 secondary roads which traverse the island of Puerto Rico from west to east along its (C ...

'' cenic Routein this sector) to the

Cerro Maravilla Cerro Maravilla is Puerto Rico's fourth highest peak at . It is located on the northern edge Barrio Anón in Ponce, close to the border with the municipality Jayuya, and is part of the Cordillera Central (Central Mountain Range). It is known ...

communications towers, in

Barrio Anón ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish word that means " quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city delimited by functional (e.g. residential, commercial, industrial, etc.), social, architectur ...

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce ( , , ) is a city and a Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The most populated city outside the San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan metropolitan area, Ponce was founded on August 12, 1692Some publ ...

. The road's northern terminus is at the Cerro Maravilla communications towers atop the Cerro Maravilla mountain, and its southern terminus is at its intersection with PR-143.

Route description

PR-577 is a short road, approximately one-quarter mile in length. The road's primary purpose is to provide access to the television, radio and telephone communications towers located at the top of the Cerro Maravilla mountain. The road is somewhat steep, but it is safe to climb it in an automobile. Care must be exercised, however, if using the road while raining. It is an

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

road. The road is not a full two-lane road but, instead, as it is the case with many of Puerto Rico's mountain roads, it is approximately 1 and 1/2 lanes wide. As a result, if traveling this road in a vehicle, it is necessary to reduce the speed to almost a crawl when another vehicle is approaching in the opposite direction. Carretera PR-143 (Viajando hacia el Oeste) y acercandose a la Carretera PR-577 hacia el Cerro Maravilla, Barrio Anon, Ponce, Puerto Rico (DSC01621).jpg,

(Ruta Panorámica) west in

, Ponce, approaching PR-577 on the right Carretera PR-143 (Viajando hacia el Este) y acercandose a la Carretera PR-577 que dirije hacia el Cerro Maravilla, Barrio Anon, Ponce, PR (DSC01629).jpg, PR-143 (Ruta Panorámica) east in Barrio Anón, Ponce, approaching PR-577 (on the left), which leads to

. Note the white "PR-577" road sign barely visible on the right

Significance

The Cerro Maravilla mountain gained notoriety in Puerto Rico and internationally as the site where

Puerto Rico Police The Puerto Rico Police (PPR; , ), officially the Puerto Rico Police Bureau (, ), is a law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the entire Puerto Rico, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a division of the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safe ...

ambushed two young

Puerto Rican independence Throughout the history of Puerto Rico, its inhabitants have initiated several movements to gain independence for the island, first from the Spanish Empire until 1898 and since then from the United States. Today, the movement is most commonly r ...

advocates in 1978, murdering both, in an incident now known as the

Cerro Maravilla murders The Cerro Maravilla murders, also known as the Cerro Maravilla massacre, occurred on July 25, 1978, at Cerro Maravilla, a mountain in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Rafael Torrech San Inocencio. El Sur a la Vista. Ponce, Puerto Rico. 18 October 2010. Retr ...

. The men, aged 18 and 23, had been lured to the place by an

undercover A cover in foreign, military or police human intelligence or counterintelligence is the ostensible identity and role or position in an infiltrated organization assumed by a covert agent during a covert operation. Official cover In espionage, a ...

police agent to attempt to destroy the communications towers in an effort to call attention to the incarceration of Puerto Rican

political prisoners in the United States Throughout its history and into the present, the United States has held political prisoners, people whose detention is based substantially on political motives. Prominent US political prisoners have included anti-war socialists, civil rights mov ...

. The killing of the two men was covered up by the Puerto Rico Police and several high-level Puerto Rico government officials, and were not investigated diligently by the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

, for which a later FBI director apologized.

Route description

Significance

Major intersections

See also