Puerto Castilla is a village in the Colón Department of Honduras located approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Trujillo. This port city on the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic Ocean) was the one-time site of the United Fruit Company's Castilla Division which specialized in the growth, cultivation and shipments of the Gros Michel banana. This division was closed in the late 1930s as a result of 'Panama disease', a blight on the roots of the banana. Leigh Richardson, a leading figure in the early Belizean independence movement, was born in Puerto Castilla in 1924.