Gran Via of Granada, XIX century

• It is a straight avenue flanked by numerous modernist and art deco style buildings.

• The people of Granada called it the Gran Vía of Sugar, because it was partially financed with the profits from the sugar beet trade that was grown in the Vega de Granada

• Granada had its golden age thanks to beets.

• At the end of the 19th century, coinciding with a serious crisis in hemp and flax and as a consequence of the loss of the American colonies from where sugar was imported, some brilliant people like D. Juan López Rubio, carried out trials to adapt the cultivation of beet and eventually became the creator of the sugar industry in the fertile plain of Granada.

• The Royal Society of Friends of the Country was created, which distributed seeds to 48 towns, giving advances to those who requested it.

• That encouraged farmers, causing a euphoria that led to the planting of the entire Vega and the construction of 13 factories, making Granada the first beet producer in Spain.

• Thus began an era of prosperity in the city of Granada linked to the exploitation of sugar beet, whose most important legacy is this beautiful avenue: the “Gran Vía of Sugar”.