Now, I know that some of my loyal readership doesn’t get too excited about obelisks. So you’re excused if you want to pass over this particular post. But if you want a refresher on why these interest me, please check out this post from last year.
A surprising number of readers have sent in their own obelisk sightings after that post, proving that obelisks aren’t immune to the Baader Meinhof effect. Just do a search on “obelisk” on my blog’s main page, and you can see the wonderful variety of obelisks that have been spotted.
Today we add two more sightings:
Friend Detlef K. was on vacation in Puerto Rico when he spied this simple obelisk in the town of Luquillo.
It’s a monument to Luquillo’s native son Rosendo Matienzo Cintrón (1855-1913). Cintrón was a lawyer who became something of a political firebrand. He seems to have held a broad range of political positions, many of which contradicted each other over time. He was imprisoned by the colonial government (Puerto Rico was under Spanish rule at the time) for being a Freemason, which evidently was illegal. After his release, he was elected to a local political office, and later helped establish the Puerto Rican Autonomist Party. Later, he welcomed the United States’ military intervention in the Spanish-American War, in which Spain ended up ceding Puerto Rico to the United States. In return, the US appointed Cintrón to important political positions over its new possession. Cintrón advocated for Puerto Rico to become a U.S. state, but later became a passionate proponent of Puerto Rican independence from the United States. Somewhere in all that, he earned himself an obelisk.
Meanwhile loyal reader Steve L. sent this picture of an obelisk in “Friendship Park,” which straddles the US-Mexican border near San Diego.
Friendship Park is part of a larger “Border Field State Park,” which makes every effort to look welcoming…notwithstanding various federal security measures that are in place.
Friendship Park was established in the 1971, and at the time the obelisk was not divided by a fence. (See historic photo, below.) The obelisk was originally erected in 1851 as a boundary marker after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.
But with rising concerns about illegal immigration in the 1990s, and then concerns about international terrorism after 9/11, security measures were put in place that changed the vibe of the park.
Chasing Phantoms 