The Encierro archive · 1909

Running of the Bulls 1909: San Fermín in Pamplona

San Fermín 1909 had a bull run (encierro) on the programme every morning from Wednesday, July 7, to Sunday, July 11, the fifth and last day of the fiestas. The first, with the Zalduendo bulls of Navarra, ran “á una velocidad imposible que metía miedo”; the last ran in a cold drizzle on wet, slippery stones. It was the first San Fermín since the death of Pablo Sarasate the previous September.^{1, 3, 9, 11}

By Encierro · Last reviewed November 9, 2026

5runs, July 7 to 11

6:00start, a.m.

1909the first San Fermín since Sarasate’s death

How the fiesta ran in 1909

The programme put the first morning simply: “A las seis en punto, al disparo del cohete, á correr delante de los Zalduendos”, at six sharp, at the rocket, run ahead of the Zalduendos.¹ The programmes set a run every morning from July 7 to July 11; the paper reported those of July 7, 9 and 11. On the last day the programme said goodbye: “Se acaban las dianas, van á terminar los encierros”.⁸ The paper called July 11 the fifth and last day of the fiestas.⁹

The bulls waited before the fiesta at the Sario and in the corrals of the old gas works, and were moved before dawn to the small corral at the Rochapea gate.² On July 5, before the fiesta began, one of the Urcola bulls was badly hurt by one of its brothers⁶ and had to be put down.⁷

A week later, on Sunday, July 18, a football club benefit gave Pamplona another fiesta-like day, “A excepción de las dianas y encierro”: everything except the dianas and the encierro.¹⁰

Every known encierro of 1909, by day and ranch

The encierros of San Fermín 1909, from the Diario de Navarra programmes and reports.
Date	Run	Ranch (ganadería)	What the paper reported
July 7	1	Jacinto Zalduendo	Frightening speed; a pile-up at the ring
July 8	2	José Pereira Palha Blanco (programmed)	Programme: run at six
July 9	3	Marqués de Villagodio	No incidents worth noting
July 10	4	Félix Urcola (programmed)	Programme: six bulls at six
July 11	5, last	Marqués de Guadalest	Drizzle, few runners, no incidents

The 1909 encierros, day by day

Run 1 of 5

Wednesday, July 7, 1909 · Jacinto Zalduendo

Start6:00 a.m.

InjuriesNone serious

The Zalduendo bulls, a Navarre ranch, left the small corral of the Rochapea gate at six. “Los bichos corrían á una velocidad imposible que metía miedo”: runners threw themselves onto the pavements to get out of the way, and one fell in front of the Casa Consistorial without harm. At the entrance to the ring a runner fell and, as always, the rest of his group fell on top of him; “Las reses pasaron sobre el montón, pateando á los caídos”, and only the bulls’ speed kept it from being worse.^{1, 3}

Run 2 of 5, programmed

Thursday, July 8, 1909 · José Pereira Palha Blanco

Start6:00 a.m.

The programme: at six, as on the first day, the Portuguese bulls of José Pereira Palha Blanco, moved before dawn from the Sario and the corrals of the old gas works, would be run into the ring.²

Run 3 of 5

Friday, July 9, 1909 · Marqués de Villagodio

IncidentsNone

The Marqués de Villagodio bulls ran in this morning.⁴ “El encierro de los toros del marqués de Villagodio verificóse sin incidentes” worth noting.⁵

Run 4 of 5, programmed

Saturday, July 10, 1909 · Félix Urcola

Start6:00 a.m.

Bulls6

“A las seis saldrán del corralillo del portal de Rochapea los seis moruchos de don Félix Urcola”, the programme announced: the six Urcola bulls of Seville would leave the small corral at six.⁵

Run 5 of 5, the last

Sunday, July 11, 1909 · Marqués de Guadalest

Start6:00 a.m.

IncidentsNone

WeatherGrey, cold, drizzle

The last morning dawned grey, cold and drizzly. The Guadalest encierro ran without incident but drew few spectators, and few runners, “por causa del piso húmedo y resbaladizo”, because the paving was wet and slippery. The rain came back before the morning in the ring was over.^{8, 9}

San Fermín 1909 poster (cartel)

Artist: J. Ciga (signature)
Signed by: Daniel Irujo, mayor; Agapito Goñi, secretary
Printed by: Imp. Lit. J. Ortega, Valencia

A man in a beret climbs the front of a house to get away from a bull coming down a narrow street of balconies, while a boy in a white smock and red neckerchief runs ahead of it. Ollaquindía notes the mark of Ciga’s posters: his figures, people running headlong, runners ahead of the bulls, children ahead of the kilikis, seem to burst out of the frame, a hand or a foot over the edge.^{12, 11}

Ciga was twenty. His biographer José María Martiñena, quoted by Ollaquindía, writes that his second San Fermín poster won a prize, that an American patron then paid for his studies in Madrid and Paris, and that within five years his painting “Un mercado de Elizondo” hung at the Grand Salon in Paris. “Y todo comienza por unos carteles de San Fermín”, Ollaquindía adds.¹¹

The poster names the ranches whose bulls came that year: Zalduendo, Palha, Villagodio, Urcola and Guadalest.¹²

Pamplona in 1909

An absence

No Sarasate

The violinist Pablo Sarasate, who had come to San Fermín every year but one from 1878 to 1908, was missing; he died on September 20, 1908, at his Villa Navarra in Biarritz, and was buried in Pamplona.¹¹

Words of 1909

Zalduendos and moruchos

The paper named the herds after their ranches, los Zalduendos, and called the Urcola bulls moruchos. It used encierro for the run, corralillo for the small corral at the Rochapea gate and montón for the pile-up of fallen runners on July 7.^{1, 5, 3}

Photographs

Where to see old photographs

The city’s photo archive, the Fototeca de Pamplona, holds historic photographs of the encierro, free to view online.¹³

San Fermín 1909: questions and answers

When were the bull runs of San Fermín 1909?

The programmes of San Fermín 1909 set a bull run every morning from Wednesday, July 7, to Sunday, July 11, 1909: five runs, with bulls of Zalduendo, Palha, the Marqués de Villagodio, Félix Urcola and the Marqués de Guadalest.^{1, 2, 4, 5, 8}

What happened in the first encierro of 1909?

The Zalduendo bulls ran the first encierro of 1909, on July 7, at a frightening speed. Runners threw themselves onto the pavements, and at the entrance to the ring a group of fallen runners was trampled as the bulls ran over them; only the bulls’ speed kept it from being worse.³

Why was the last run of 1909 so quiet?

The last run of San Fermín 1909, on July 11, dawned grey, cold and drizzly, and the paving was wet and slippery, so the Guadalest encierro drew few spectators and few runners. It passed without incident.⁹

Who was J. Ciga?

J. Ciga made the San Fermín 1909 poster at twenty, his second for the fiesta. His biographer José María Martiñena writes that it won a prize, that an American patron then paid for his studies in Madrid and Paris, and that within five years his painting “Un mercado de Elizondo” hung at the Grand Salon in Paris.¹¹

Who made the San Fermín 1909 poster?

J. Ciga made the San Fermín 1909 poster, signed “J. Ciga” on the poster itself: a man climbs a house front to get away from a bull coming down a narrow street of balconies, while a boy in a white smock runs ahead of it.^{12, 11}

Sources

Numbers on the page refer to this list. Diario de Navarra pages are cited from its archive (hemeroteca); quotations in Spanish are given as printed, in the spelling of the day.

Full source list

Diario de Navarra, July 6, 1909, page 1: programme for July 7, “A las seis en punto, al disparo del cohete, á correr delante de los Zalduendos”. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 7, 1909, page 1: programme for July 8, the Palha bulls moved before dawn from the Sario and the old gas works. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 9, 1909, page 1: the run of the Zalduendo bulls, “Los bichos corrían á una velocidad imposible que metía miedo”. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 9, 1909, page 1: programme for July 9, the encierro of the Marqués de Villagodio bulls. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 10, 1909, page 1: “El encierro de los toros del marqués de Villagodio verificóse sin incidentes”; programme for July 10, the Urcola bulls. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 6, 1909, page 2: “Uno de los Urcolas quedó ayer gravemente herido”, hurt by a brother. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 14, 1909, page 1: the Urcola bull hurt by its brother sent to be put down. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 11, 1909, page 1: programme for July 11, “Se acaban las dianas, van á terminar los encierros”, the Guadalest bulls. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 13, 1909, page 1: the last encierro, July 11, in grey drizzle, “por causa del piso húmedo y resbaladizo”. Diario de Navarra archive
Diario de Navarra, July 20, 1909, page 4: Sunday, July 18, “A excepción de las dianas y encierro”. Diario de Navarra archive
Ricardo Ollaquindía, 100 años de carteles de las fiestas y ferias de San Fermín (1882 to 1981), Pamplona, 1981, chapter “1909”. Free copy in the Biblioteca Navarra Digital (BiNaDi). binadi.navarra.es
The poster of the Grandes Fiestas y Ferias de San Fermín 1909 itself, signed J. Ciga; signed by the mayor Daniel Irujo and the secretary Agapito Goñi; printed by Imp. Lit. J. Ortega, Valencia.
Fototeca de Pamplona, Archivo Municipal de Pamplona (photographs of the encierro, free to view online; publication needs the archive’s permission). archivo.pamplona.es

How to cite this page

Encierro. “Running of the Bulls 1909: San Fermín in Pamplona.” Encierro.com, November 9, 2026. https://encierro.com/san-fermin-1909/

Corrections and updates

November 9, 2026: questions and answers rewritten around what people search, each answer with its sources; the poster labelled with its Spanish name, cartel.
November 8, 2026: page published.

Walk the route with people who run it

Book your walk