Cerro Santa Lucía

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Santa Lucía Hill is a small hill in downtown Santiago, Chile. Celebrated for being the site of the city's founding by Pedro de Valdivia in 1541, it is today at the eastern end of downtown Santiago. Adorned previously with ornate facades, stairways, and fountains, today an adjacent metro station is named for it. Atop the hill, there is a vista point unsurpassed inside Santiago except by Cerro San Cristóbal. It was originally called Huelén by the pre-colonization inhabitants; in Mapuche the word means "pain, melancholy or sadness". The name comes from day in which Pedro de Valdivia conquered the hill, on December 13, 1541.

Its first use by its conquerors was as a point of reconnaissance, or a lookout in the years of the Conquista (1541).

On one side, the actual hillside was used as a cemetery for the dissidents, people who refused to follow the common doctrine of the times. Although, years later this cemetery was moved to the general cemetery. On the other side, Fort Hidalgo was built in 1820.

In 1872 Sir Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna decided to conduct a dramatic change to the urban atmosphere of the city of Santiago, among his many works aimed to improve the city, and thus initiated the construction of the Cerro Santa Lucia.

The works of 1872 consisted of a road which crossed the hill, which at the top accessed a chapel which he also built there, illuminated by the then-novel means of gas. The hill is occupied for the most of the rest by a park in which are found trees, fountains and lookouts. The actual hill is watered by a sophisticated irrigation system.

Vicuña MacKenna was assisted in realizing his designs by the architect Manuel Aldunate, the constructor Enrique Henes, and the stonecutter Andrés Staimbuck.