THE PALACE. 
The Presidents Palace, formerly the Palace of the Governor-General, 
ranks as one of the finest buildings in the city. It was built in 1834 
during the administration of Tacon, and occupies an entire block, with 
colonnaded fagade extending the entire east side of the Plaza de Armas. The 
main entrance is of marble richly carved, the central feature of the decora¬ 
tion being a cartouche bearing the Spanish Arms. The large patio is 
surrounded by arcades, with grilled' balconies and airy galleries; in the 
center, amid a mass of shrubbery and tropical flowers, stands the well 
known statue of Columbus. The construction of the building is very 
massive, with heavy floor beams of acana and jocuma. The interior was 
partially remodeled by the Americans; the decoration of the Mayor’s 
room was done by them; the wainscoting is of the beautiful Cuban wood 
known as majagua. The Palace is the official residence of the President, 
and contains also the offices of the Mayor and other city officials, and the 
hall of the Ayuntamiento or City Council. 
The President’s apartments are on the third floor, reached by broad 
marble stairways with large mirrors in gold frames on the landings. Of 
the three State reception rooms, one is furnished in white and blue, 
another in crimson, with the escutcheons of Spain and Havana over the 
doors and windows; and a third smaller one which under the old regime 
was the Throne Room, and is now the special reception room in which 
are received the guests. Among the crimson upholstered chairs 
in the room is one which is surmounted by a gilt crown. It was form¬ 
erly the throne chair, and stood on a dais in this room. Back of the 
throne room is the chapel, whose robes and altar cloths are rich em¬ 
broideries, done by the hands of devout Cuban women. 
As the headquarters of the government, the Palace represented Spanish 
authority, and was identified with Spain’s rule of Cuba for good or for 
ill; it was fitting then that the final act in the surrender of that authority 
and the abandonment of that rule should take place within the Palace walls. 
It was here that on January 1, 1899, Lieutenant-General Adolfo Jimines 
Castellanos, the last representative of Spanish dominion over Cuba, 
formally yielded up his office to the representatives of the United States, 
and thus ended Spain’s tenure in Cuba. General William Ludlow, then 
commanding the Department of Havana, records the momentous incident 
in his report to the Secretary of War: 
January 1. The Governor-General’s Palace was surrounded on all sides with lines 
of troops, all traffic stopped, neighboring streets guarded, and shops and stores 
fronting on the Plaza de Armas closed. No one but those living in the houses was 
permitted to occupy a window, and every precaution was take- *o prevent the po* 
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