22 September

lecture series
CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE RONCAL VALLEY

Gregorio Garjón (1840-1915): Projects for the Roncal Valley

José Ignacio Riezu
University of Navarra

Gregorio Garjón y Barrena was born in Roncal on 12 March 1840 into a family of carpenters. His parents were Jose Javier Garjón and Juana Barrena and his younger brothers were Pedro María (1842-1925) and Javier Eugenio (1845-1919). Gregorio's father died in 1851 and in 1853 his mother remarried, soon becoming a widow. Around 1855, Gregorio went to Lumbier to perfect the family carpenter's official document , which he had probably already started with his father and grandfather.

Inheritance

In 1868 and after 10 years of a long trial, Gregorio Garjón and 12 other heirs received the inheritance of José Miguel Urzainqui Marichalar, a wealthy Cuban landowner from Garde.

On 20 July 1868, Gregorio married Eulalia Petra Labari, aged 23. They had at least four children, but all of them died very early, except Evarista, born on 26 October 1870. His wife died in childbirth, also very young, on 14 March 1876. Evarista also died early in 1900.

From the mid 1870s, Gregorio spent long periods of time away from Roncal, in Madrid, and began his contacts with engineering and with what would be his great concern throughout his life: the modernisation of his town, his valley and his country. It was also around this time that he set up a residency program in Madrid and another in Pamplona, and began his close involvement partnership in the administration of the estate of his cousin, the tenor Julián Gayarre.

Councillor and Mayor

Gregorio soon began his relationship with the town administration. In 1868 he was elected councillor in the first elections by universal male suffrage held in Spain. In August 1873 he was elected mayor of the town. During this period he was responsible for a multitude of repairs and improvements in the town: the town hall, the public fountains of the town, the paving of several streets, the road to the castle, the road to the cemetery, the atrium of the church, etc. In March 1874, the Carlist troops entered the Valley and Gregorio, a staunch liberal, had to take refuge in Pamplona. At the end of the civil war, in March 1876, he was reinstated at position as mayor of Roncal. He remained mayor until 1st March 1877.

Promoter of the modernisation of the village and the valley

One of Gregorio's great desires throughout his life was to promote progress in his village and in the Roncal Valley; to this end, he promoted a multitude of works, especially the improvement of the valley's communications, both by road and by rail.

In 1870 Gregorio Garjón was commissioned by the Valley to accompany the engineers of the Provincial Council on the design of the road that crosses the Valley from Burgui to Isaba. In 1872, he took part in the Valley's negotiations with the Provincial Council for the construction of the road from Navascues to Uztarroz. In 1873 he was involved in the construction of the road from Jaca to Sangüesa and from Matral to Burgui. In 1903 he promoted the construction of the road to Garde and in 1904 he was the promoter of the road from Salvatierra to Burgui, negotiating with the State and the Diputación.

On 24th January 1883, a year after the Burgui-Isaba main road was opened, he founded the stagecoach company "La Roncalesa" with 19 other partners, business , the first passenger transport company in the Valley to link Lumbier with Uztarroz, passing through Navascues.

Other projects of his were: the exploitation of the derivatives from the distillation of the resin from the pine forests of the Valley, forming in 1905 with his brother Eugenio and another partner the "Sociedad Resinera Garjón y Compañía". The crisis and the reluctance of the local councils prevented the business from coming to fruition. Another project of which a plan remains in his house is the construction of five dams in the municipality of Roncal, entitled "project de cinco saltos destinados a la fabricación de pasta de madera para papel en el río Ezca" ( of five waterfalls for the manufacture of wood pulp for paper in the river Ezca).

His great passion: the railways

Another of his great passions was the railway. He devoted a large part of his life to defending the route of a railway line through the Roncal Valley. In November 1876, he obtained authorisation from the Ministry of Public Works to study a railway that, starting from Castejón and following the banks of the Aragón and Esca rivers, would end at the French border in the Roncal Valley. Gregorio commissioned the project to José Canalejas Casas, a famous engineer from Barcelona, an expert in railway matters. The project was presented to the Ministry in November 1881. The board de Caminos, Canales y Puertos issued a very favourable report ; however, the Ministry of Public Works waited for the pertinent reports from the Ministry of War, which on May 19th 1882 informed that "the aforementioned railway is detrimental to the defence of the country, and no other opening in the Pyrenees can be admitted without it being conveniently defended... and therefore an absolute refusal from the military point of view will be necessary...".

Gregorio continued to fight for the project, and at the end of 1882 and in 1884 the Diputación officially supported it. During these years there was a fierce struggle in the local press between the defenders of the project róncales and the defenders of the link with France for Alduides. Although with little success, Gregorio continued to fight for his project in Navarre and in Madrid, defending it until his death.

Gregorio Garjón was also involved in other railway projects such as: the Pasajes-Jaca line passing through Pamplona and Sangüesa, the Castejón-Fitero, the Soria-Castejón, Cadreita to Guiral passing through the Virgen del Yugo, and the Puertollano-Chinchilla. Bernardo Estornes Lasa said of him in his work El valle del Roncal: "Roads and railways were an obsession for him. His projects were the railways from Pasajes to Jaca, Castejón to Fitero and several others, but the main one was the direct Paris-Madrid line through the Roncal Valley".

Administrator and executor of Julián Gayarre

Gregorio was very close to his cousin Julián. He was his administrator, the one who managed his estate and the one who maintained the ties between the family and the tenor during his long absences from Roncal. He was also the one who informed Julián of the deaths of his mother, his two brothers and his friends. He organised all the works that Gayarre carried out in the village, such as the pelota court, the tenor's house and the schools. He was also the executor of the tenor's will, together with Julio Enciso, and the administrator of the estate of Gayarre's nephews and nieces until they came of age. In the correspondence between Gregorio and his cousin Julián, we can see his role as administrator, as he often asked him to send him his savings to invest them in Treasury bonds or shares in the Banco de España. Gregorio informed him of his investments and very often reproached him for his generosity towards friends and acquaintances. In 1885 Julián Gayarre granted a general power of attorney for all his business dealings to Gregorio Garjón.

Death

In 1907, Gregorio, aged 67, returned to Roncal. In 1912, from 21st to 29th August, he received the visit and hosted the painter Joaquín Sorolla in his house. In the last years of his life, Gregorio continued his incessant business life, being elected mayor of Roncal for the second time in 1914. Gregorio died as mayor of his town on 6 August 1915. On the same day, the Town Council held an extraordinary board to honour its mayor: "In the town of Roncal on 6 August 1915. The session opened with the reading of a letter from the resident Don Eugenio Garjón in which he stated that at three o'clock this morning his brother Don Gregorio Garjón y Barrena, constitutional mayor of this town, had passed away. The corporation unanimously agreed to record in certificate the deep feeling that the death of their president has caused them, of whom there will remain a pleasing report in this town in attention to the many improvements that he introduced, both in the time that he was mayor, and particularly, as he always showed an extraordinary affection towards his town; it was also agreed that the town council in plenary session of the Executive Council would attend to the carrying of the body to the cemetery that will take place tomorrow at 9 o'clock in the morning".

Blas Aguilar said "Gregorio Garjón was of the smart race of Roncal and a carpenter in Lumbier, with no more culture than the first letters he learnt in his childhood. His natural talent was very well developed".

Sources

file Roncal Municipal Council
file Roncal Parish Church
file of the Julián Gayarre House-Museum
file of Casa Garjón-Labari. Correspondence of Gregorio Garjón
file Royal and General of Navarre
periodicals collection of Diario de Navarra
Echo of Navarre
The dynasty
Esarte Munian, P. El Ferrocarril Europeo de Navarra (The European Railway of Navarre), Pamplona, Imprenta Popular, 1982.
Estornes Lasa, B., Erronkari (El valle de Roncal), Zaragoza, 1927.
Suso Espadas, I., Alduides versus Roncal, Pamplona, Public University of Navarre, 2006.