Francisco Cortijo, a humanist doctor along the lines of Gregorio Marañón and José Jiménez Díaz (a tradition continued in our territorial area by figures of the stature of Francisco Layna Serrano and Antonio Herrera Casado), was born and died in Pastrana (1910-1992) and was a witness privileged -at its leading scale- of these changes in the province of Guadalajara, including the promotion of tourism from State institutions, the construction or expansion of several reservoirs and the growing concern for the recovery of the historical-artistic heritage (castles and other buildings, especially the ruined Palacio del Infantado). Appointed official chronicler of Pastrana in 1960, he held the position of mayor of the town from that year until almost the end of the Franco regime (he managed to have the first Province Day celebrated in Pastrana in 1962) and, as a provincial deputy, he was in charge of Charity and Social Work area in the new corporation established in 1967. An educated and active man, his concern for early childhood education was satisfied with the inauguration of the "best school group in the province" (in the words of Pilar Fernández, then inspector of Primary Education), in addition to intensifying his building work with different projects of his own or encouraged by him, such as a new water supply, street paving, reform of the town hall, construction of the Union House and restoration of the Ducal Palace and the exceptional tapestries of the Collegiate Church. Corresponding academic of the Fine Arts of San Fernando, president of the History section of the Marqués de Santillana Cultural Institution and Silver Medal for Tourist Merit in 1969, Cela describes it this way in the well-known Viaje a la Alcarria (1946): “ Don Paco is a young, dapper man, with a healthy complexion and elegant demeanor, thoughtful and with a veiled, slightly, distantly sad smile”. Among his research works, we can mention The painter Juan Bautista Mayno and his family (Provincial Board of Culture of the Diputación de Guadalajara, 1970), "The organ of the Collegiate Church of Pastrana" (Wad-Al-Hayara nº 5, Diputación de Guadalajara, 1978), Santa Teresa y Pastrana (Exhibition of Carmelite memories, 1980), Pastrana and its surroundings (Spanish Federation of Tourism Journalists and Writers, 1986), Guadalajara: the last paradise (Spanish Federation of Tourism Journalists and Writers, 1986) and "The Desert of Bolarque and Melisa de Bolarque" (Guadalajara Ethnology Notebooks No. 21, Guadalajara Provincial Council, 1992).
Francisco Cortijo, a humanist doctor along the lines of Gregorio Marañón and José Jiménez Díaz (a tradition continued in our territorial area by figures of the stature of Francisco Layna Serrano and Antonio Herrera Casado), was born and died in Pastrana (1910-1992) and was a witness privileged -at its leading scale- of these changes in the province of Guadalajara, including the promotion of tourism from State institutions, the construction or expansion of several reservoirs and the growing concern for the recovery of the historical-artistic heritage (castles and other buildings, especially the ruined Palacio del Infantado). Appointed official chronicler of Pastrana in 1960, he held the position of mayor of the town from that year until almost the end of the Franco regime (he managed to have the first Province Day celebrated in Pastrana in 1962) and, as a provincial deputy, he was in charge of Charity and Social Work area in the new corporation established in 1967. An educated and active man, his concern for early childhood education was satisfied with the inauguration of the "best school group in the province" (in the words of Pilar Fernández, then inspector of Primary Education), in addition to intensifying his building work with different projects of his own or encouraged by him, such as a new water supply, street paving, reform of the town hall, construction of the Union House and restoration of the Ducal Palace and the exceptional tapestries of the Collegiate Church. Corresponding academic of the Fine Arts of San Fernando, president of the History section of the Marqués de Santillana Cultural Institution and Silver Medal for Tourist Merit in 1969, Cela describes it this way in the well-known Viaje a la Alcarria (1946): “ Don Paco is a young, dapper man, with a healthy complexion and elegant demeanor, thoughtful and with a veiled, slightly, distantly sad smile”. Among his research works, we can mention The painter Juan Bautista Mayno and his family (Provincial Board of Culture of the Diputación de Guadalajara, 1970), "The organ of the Collegiate Church of Pastrana" (Wad-Al-Hayara nº 5, Diputación de Guadalajara, 1978), Santa Teresa y Pastrana (Exhibition of Carmelite memories, 1980), Pastrana and its surroundings (Spanish Federation of Tourism Journalists and Writers, 1986), Guadalajara: the last paradise (Spanish Federation of Tourism Journalists and Writers, 1986) and "The Desert of Bolarque and Melisa de Bolarque" (Guadalajara Ethnology Notebooks No. 21, Guadalajara Provincial Council, 1992).