The origin of this agricultural festival dates back to the time of King Fernando VI, who authorized the creation of the mayor’s office of Adra, Berja and Dalias in 1753.
In 1754 Christopher Robles donated an image of San Marcos to the Parish Church of Adra in order to promote the worship to the evangelist saint. In those years the church was under construction and for several years the image of the saint was in the Hermitage of San Sebastian, a place where the farmers became familiar with it and to whom they dedicated a feast on April 25th.
This image was destroyed in 1936 and was replaced by a plaster image in the early 1840s, which was purchased in Granada by a representative group of farmers. In this way the festival of San Marcos continued to be held on April 25th every year. As from 1988, with the creation of the San Marcos Brotherhood, the feast took a new impulse.
The brotherhood acquired a new image of San Marcos in 1994 (work of the sculptor Eduardo Espinosa Alfambra) and repaired the previous plaster image, which became the insignia of the headquarters of the Brotherhood located in Esperanza Street.
The celebration of a mass in honor of San Marcos takes place every year, where a fruits and vegetables offering is made to the saint in appreciation for the good harvests of the year.
Previously, at 8 am, blessed doughnuts are distributed in the alley of the Church. The streets of the old town, which are decorated for the occasion, welcome the procession of the image. At noon, the saint is carried in procession to the San Sebastián Square. He is moved on a throne placed on the trailer of a farm tractor and accompanied by a procession of floats, horses and harnessed mules.
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