In the second half of the 19th century, the streets of Medellín left as much to be desired as the provincial roads. They were of moderate width, paved with stone, and—in the older sections—winding; they featured narrow, discontinuous sidewalks and, following the Spanish style, were drained down the middle. Much like rural roads, these streets were at the mercy of the seasons: dusty in the summer, muddy in the winter. Their surfaces were constantly churned up by the great plow of hoof and shoe, of wheel and sledge, and by the tread of human feet and walking sticks..
If getting around the area was difficult on foot or on horseback, it was even more so in carriages with rimless wheels—vehicles that began to be imported from the United States and Europe. The first such vehicle to travel the streets of Medellín was a carriage brought from Jamaica by Don Juan Uribe Mondragón in 1836. When Bishop Juan de la Cruz Gómez Plata arrived in the city, Don Juan sent the carriage to meet him at the La Toma bridge; however, given the immense difficulty of navigating the terrain, the bishop opted to enter on horseback. The truth was that the streets of this beloved town at the time—with their sloping cobblestones, potholes, ditches, and open drains—were better suited for oxen from Sonsón than for human beings, and certainly not at all for wheeled vehicles..
Their arrival was a novelty for the inhabitants of Medellín, but it also exposed the limitations of the urban infrastructure. The streets—built for pedestrians, horses, and mules—were not designed to accommodate wheeled vehicles. Uneven cobblestones, changes in elevation, gutters, drainage channels, and numerous potholes made movement difficult. The rattling of wheels against the stones, the vibrations of the vehicles, and the challenges in maneuvering them rendered carriages quite impractical in many parts of the city.
