History of Torreblascopedro
The first reliable references to the town date back to the eighteenth century, when the municipality is mentioned in maps and books outlining the term of Baeza. The oldest known construction dates to 1714, the year that is referenced in a trapezoidal molding of the heraldic shield, which is still preserved today. In the eighteenth century, the community was composed of a series of scattered farmhouses who profited from the rich cattle pastures. The exact name of the town at this time is unclear, appearing diversely as Torre de Blasco Pedro, Torre de Velasco and Blascopedro, among others.
The small nucleus of Lupión, in contrast to the Baezano power, generated a lawsuit for the possession of the rich Dehesa Boyal called Torre de Velasco. After its resolution, in 1771 Baeza handed over the municipality to the Villazgo de Lupión, on which it depended until its constitution as a Villa.
In 1813, the first letter requesting the independence of Lupión was raised and, many years and requests later, it obtained independence in 1871, definitively leaving the town with the name of Torreblascopedro.
The economy based on orchards and cereals gradually disappeared due to olive groves, a trend that still persists today. In the mid-nineteenth century, the main product of the town was olive oil. The presence of cattle was also notable, particularly of sheep, due to the good pastures. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the population quadrupled, far exceeding a thousand inhabitants.
The consolidation and boom of the population took place in the 1950s, when the population went from 3,253 to 4,017 inhabitants, a figure that continues to be the maximum registered in the municipality. This spectacular demographic increase was due to the planting of new and more profitable crops as a result of irrigation and the Jaén Plan, with the creation of the colonial town of Campillo del Río. Both reasons led to Torreblascopedro being one of the few towns in Jaén in which immigration exceeded emigration.
After the golden decade of the 1950s, like many towns in Spain, scarcity of work and low wages caused mass emigration, with Madrid, Barcelona, France and Germany being the preferred destinations. This trend continued until 1980, when the population figure stabilized around 3,000 inhabitants.