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Leonard B. Smith[36]

"Of the many foreigners who have been through Curaçao," wrote John de Pool in the 1930s, there have been many "illustrious individuals - socialites, intellectuals, politicians... Many of them have made major contributions to the progress of our island." Leonard B. Smith was certainly one who made his mark; as De Pool succinctly notes: "his dynamism was like his beard. Both were abundant."[37]

Born 1839 in Mill Creek, Maine, Smith opted for a career at sea, becoming a cabin boy at age fourteen. By 1862 he had bought his first schooner and, working himself up to captain, he began to trade successfully; soon he purchased shares in several more ships. Smith sailed into Curaçao for the first time in 1876 at age 37. He returned later that year with a load of timber and ice from frozen US rivers, but this initial encroachment on the terrain of the local merchant elite did not proceed smoothly. His pinewood imports were in direct competition with the powerful interests of S.E.L. Maduro & Sons, and drew the powerful magnate's wrath, although Smith eventually was able to establish his niche.

Locals were unfamiliar with the idea of cold beverages, and even believed that drinking them in the tropical heat was harmful to their health. To persuade them otherwise, Smith began serving up cold beer, and quickly won converts, but not before he had seen his first load of ice melt away due to a lack of storage space for the blocks, which had to be covered with thick layers of sawdust to protect them from the brutal tropical sun. His later ice imports, however, were eagerly received.

Smith continued his successful ice trade, adding small coolboxes for storing ice in private homes. As the number of steamship calls increased, he began importing coal from the United States and England. He also exported salt from Bonaire to the United States. He bought the Nieuwe Werf from the Van der Meulen family, where he built warehouses to store his imports, adding a coal wharf that allowed Curaçao to become a major bunkering station.

Smith's many ambitious projects helped lay the foundations for the development of Curaçao's modern infrastructure. The floating pontoon bridge across St. Anna Bay was the most profitable of his projects. After its success, he received a twenty-five year government concession in 1893 to sink artesian wells on government land and lay water pipes in town, completing the project in 1895. In 1893 he received a twenty-five year government concession to generate electricity; by 1897 the city center of Willemstad had electric light. Other ambitious Smith plans included the construction of a hotel in Otrobanda aimed specifically at US tourists fleeing cold winters, and construction of a drydock, but he died of a heart attack in 1898, at age 59, before he could undertake either of them. At his death he was one of Curaçao's wealthiest inhabitants.

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Curaçao Chamber of Commerce & Industry