Castillo Hidalgo

Castillo Hidalgo is a building located on the summit of the Santa Lucía hill, in the city of Santiago, Chile. It was built in 1816 by order of the governor of Chile during the Reconquista, Casimiro Marcó del Pont, for the defence of the city, under the name Battery of Santa Lucía. The design and engineering works of the fort or castle were under the direction of Brigadier Manuel Olaguer Feliú of the Royal Corps of Engineers.

After the country's independence, it took the name of Manuel Hidalgo, a captain fallen at the Battle of Chacabuco.

In 1872, while Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna was intendant of Santiago, he began the urban remodelling and afforestation of the hill, and thus in 1874 the Castillo Hidalgo became the seat of a historical museum that displayed the Exhibition of the Colonial Period. After Vicuña Mackenna's death the building's collection was distributed among various buildings of the city and the building was turned into a municipal warehouse.

Between 1902 and 1910 the electric railway of the Santa Lucía hill ran, connecting the base with the Castillo Hidalgo and later with the Teatro Santa Lucía, which existed on the present-day Caupolicán Terrace.

Between 1944 and 1981 the castle housed the Museum of American Folk Art, which holds the collection. In 1997 a series of improvements began which turned the Castillo Hidalgo into an events centre.

Machine-translated from “Castillo Hidalgo” on the Spanish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Castillo Hidalgo ranks #6,821 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #6 of the 16 mapped in Chile. 1 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Chile compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Spanish) ↗