Historical Summary
La Hacienda Cincinnati was established late XIX century by the American electric engineer Orlando Lincoln Flye (1861-1937), who arrived to Santa Marta under contract with the Governor’s Office of Magdalena to install the first hydroelectric plant of Colombia, which would generate electricity for the city.
1892 Contracted by the Governor’s Office of Magdalena and the “Compañía de la Luz Eléctrica” (electric light company), Orlando Flye returns to Colombia to build and implement a hydroelectric plant and the network for electric power transmission for the city of Santa Marta.
1893 During the explorations developed at the middle basins of the rivers near the city with the purpose of looking for the best water supply required by the generating turbine, Orlando Flye collects some coffee samples of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta and sends them to New York, to a friend of his who is related to the commercialization of coffee grains, and who answers with the greatest enthusiasm that the sample received “was of the best quality, wishing to have each year several thousand sacks of the coffee of the Sierra Nevada ”.
Encouraged by the news received from abroad, Flye decides to remain in Santa Marta and starts exploring the area of San Lorenzo to start a coffee project.
1898 Foundation of Hacienda Cincinnati and the first planting of the Typica variety (Coffee arabica typica).
1901 First coffee exports to the United States.
1902 Construction is completed of the family home at the coffee hacienda, called La Casa Grande (the large house).
1925 Hacienda Cincinnati has 500,000 coffee trees and becomes at the time the most productive coffee plantation of the region of Magdalena and one of the most important of the country.
1933 Orlando Lincoln Flye and his wife, Eva Blanot were decorated by the Municipal Council of Santa Marta (Resolution 14 of 1933) being distinguished as illustrious citizens and adoptive children of the city.
1937 Eva and Orlando Flye die in Newton, Massachusetts, United States.
1941 William Flye Blanot, youngest son of Orlando and Eva, assumes the direction of the hacienda.
1950 Starts a stage of improvement to the infrastructure and production of the farm. William Flye B. builds internal roads in the hacienda to facilitate collection of the grain. The road from the hacienda to Santa Marta is extended and there is now vehicle communication to the port of the city.
1957 The XIX Coffee Congress of Colombia meeting in Bogotá decorates William Flye Blanot with the Grand Cross of Agricultural Merit.
1972 William Flye dies (age 72). The new administrators of the farm are William and Beatriz Flye Salcedo, third generation of the Flye family.
1984 The Flye family sells Hacienda Cincinnati finalizing a successful period of coffee of 86 years and three generations dedicated to growing coffee.
2010 Hacienda Cincinnati, with an approximate area of 689 hectares and a coffee plantation of 45,000 trees, is acquired by the company Cincinnati Coffee Company.
With the vision of contributing to the preservation of one of the most important environmental ecosystems of the world, a master plan is adopted to grow organic, shaded coffee of Colombian and special varieties.