Send Gift Baskets to Velez-Malaga, Spain

Although the discovery of the Iron Age remains in the old town of Vélez-Málaga, the first solid news comes from the Phoenicians, who settled on the coast of the present municipality in the 8th century B.C. C., particularly in estuaries of rivers, since they document the archaeological sites of Tuscan and Chorreras. In the area of Manganeto, where the original Phoenician jetty of this settlement and the Greek amphoras Containers of attic oil was found, remains of nozzles and slag revealed the exploitation of iron metallurgy, an activity closely associated with port and commerce. As Phoenician fishing activity developed, this pier would have been used extensively for mooring Phoenician vessels. The Roman occupation is evident in different deposits, but especially in the Cerro del Mar necropolis of the maritime city of Maenoba in the Torre del Mar area. The Romans developed salting and garum production, whose bases had already been settled by the Phoenicians. Incipient agriculture and fishing were also created during this time.

Christian authorities introduced a new concept of the city, and shortly after the conquest, their urban morphology changed substantially. Squares and new civil and religious buildings were ordered, resulting in significant spatial transformations. On the old mosques were built the churches of Santa Mara, San Juan, San Roque, San Juan Evangelista, the convent of San Francisco, and the hermitages of San Sebastián, San Cristóbal, and Santa Catalina. A sizeable urban development occurred in the second half of the 16th century with the construction of monasteries such as Nuestra Senora de Gracia and San José de la Soledad. Los Lazarinos and San Marcos hospitals are developed in terms of civil buildings.

The town had about 24,000 residents when the Andalusian earthquake struck in 1884. 1,291 houses collapsed, 500 of which became uninhabitable, and the remainder were damaged. In addition to the six dead, 16 and 30 people were injured. There was more damage in the lower part of town, built on clays and sands, than in the upper part, made on shales. In the early 20th century, the railroad reached Torre del Mar and later Velez-Málaga, connected to Malaga’s provincial capital by the Suburban Railways of Malaga. The Spanish Civil War and the subsequent establishment of a Spanish State led to many calamities for the municipality, especially during the mass evacuation of Málaga’s civilian population into Almeria during the so-called massacre of the Málaga-Almería highway. In the 1960s, the city joined the tourist boom, radically transforming Torre del Mar by constructing large apartment buildings.