News Articles

M.A. Dworkin St. Croix - In the heart of downtown Christiansted, a small public square carries more than a name. Sunday Market Square, also known as Times Square, is one of those places where everyday life and deep history meet in plain sight. People pass through it, gather near it, drive around it, or recognize it by its old movie theater and central location, yet the ground itself tells a larger story about Danish colonial rule, African survival, Caribbean commerce, free sp

M.A. Dworkin St. Croix - Historic Estate Windsor is entering a new chapter after years of being known mainly through its ruins, its overgrown paths, and the memory held in the land itself. On St. Croix, where former plantation estates sit close to neighborhoods, farms, shorelines, and hillsides, restoration is never just about stonework. It is also about access, education, and truth. The Virgin Islands Trail Alliance has led a two-year restoration effort at Historic Estate Wi

A.J. Pike St. Croix - Altona Lagoon is one of those places in Christiansted where St. Croix feels close at hand: the sea, the mangroves, the breeze, the boats, and the easy pace of a shoreline park all meet in one compact setting. Just west of Christiansted’s historic harbor area, the lagoon has grown from a protected coastal waterway into a public recreation space used by families, paddlers, anglers, walkers, and visitors looking for calm water and open sky. Its appeal comes

A.J. Pike St. Croix - A small bay on St. Croix holds one of the earliest and most painful contact stories in the Caribbean. In November 1493, Christopher Columbus’s fleet reached the island during his second voyage across the Atlantic. What followed was not a peaceful meeting of two worlds, but a violent encounter between Europeans and Indigenous people that still shapes how Columbus Day is remembered. The event is often called the Columbus Landing at Salt River Bay. It matte

Maria Rivera Garcia Special to the St. Croix Times VI-PR - On Monday, October 12, 2026, families across the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico will mark more than a holiday. They will honor a relationship built by boat rides, sugar fields, shared meals, bilingual homes, church pews, schoolyards, music, and migration. VI PR Friendship Day recognizes the long connection between two U.S. territories separated by water but joined by history. The commemoration is especially meani

A.J. Pike St. Croix - A small predator arrived on St. Croix in the late 1800s with a simple job: eat the rats that were damaging sugarcane. The plan sounded practical. Rats were a costly problem for planters, and the Small Indian Mongoose had a reputation as a bold, quick hunter. Then the island learned a hard ecological lesson. A predator introduced for one purpose does not stay inside that purpose. The mongoose did not solve the rat problem in the way planters had hoped. In

M.A. Dworkin St. Croix - The St. Croix Rain Forest feels wild, but it is not untouched. Its shady roads, tall mahogany trees, mango groves, streambeds, and old stonework hold one of the island’s most layered histories. This forest in western St. Croix is more than a scenic escape. It tells the story of Indigenous knowledge, European colonization, forced labor, resistance, farming, water engineering, and modern conservation. It also reminds the U.S. Virgin Islands that nature

GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS OF THE UNITED STATES --------0-------- DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND NATURAL RESOURCES DPNR ACQUIRES 293 ACRES AT GREAT POND TO PROTECT ST. CROIX’S SOUTH SHORE Commissioner Jean-Pierre L. Oriol of the Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR) is pleased to announce the acquisition of 293 acres of land along the South Shore of St. Croix on behalf of the people of the Virgin Islands. The acquisition includes Remainder Parcel No.

A.J. Pike St. Croix - When a monument is desecrated, the damage is not limited to stone, bronze, paint, or plaster. On St. Croix, the reported desecration of the Fort Freedom and General Buddhoe statues has touched something much deeper: the island’s memory of freedom, resistance, and belonging. These statues are more than public art. They stand in places tied to the end of slavery in the former Danish West Indies and to the courage of enslaved people who forced history to tu

M.A. Dworkin St. Croix - There is a hidden gem of a prize that is awarded to the winner of the election for Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is called Government House. The moment you enter this remarkable compound of buildings that sits along Company Street, in Christiansted, on St. Croix, you know you cannot be anywhere else but on a Caribbean island. Few buildings have such an enduring and significant role in the history of the Virgin Islands. Governme

M.A. Dworkin In a letter dated February 24, 1975, from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to John E. Harding, Commissioner, Virgin Islands Department of Public Works: “We have examined the support purpose for the construction of a By-Pass on the South side of Christiansted, St. Croix, and found that the same does not affect, duplicate or overlapping HUD- sponsored projects in the area. Since the project will be located for the most part in land undeveloped at pre

M.A. Dworkin Christiansted is often described through its Danish past, with yellow fort walls, arcaded streets, and government buildings facing the harbor. Yet that familiar story leaves out many of the hands, skills, and design habits that shaped the town. Look closer at the shaded galleries, service yards, masonry walls, and outdoor living spaces, and another influence comes into view: the African and Afro-Caribbean knowledge carried by enslaved and free Black builders, cra