Buenavista and Héroes Ferrocarrileros, in the Cuauhtémoc section of Mexico City, was inaugurated in 1892, for the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landfall in the Caribbean.

A history of the two monuments by José Manuel Villalpando shows that plans for a monument to Columbus had been planned well before the Cordier commission, with Catalan sculptor Manuel Vilar, who worked for many years in Mexico City, creating an early model for the statue.

The 1877 statue had been sponsored by a wealthy Mexican railway magnate, Antonio Escandón, who had collaborated with the French-supported regime of Maximilian of Habsburg.

The government also shaped the rhetoric concerning Columbus for their own ideological purposes, pointing to him as the one who initiated an era of global trade.

At the inauguration of the statue, there were speeches making reference to Spain, but the symbolism of Columbus was as navigator, not as a conqueror, an innocuous message at the time.