An American author, William D. Boyce (U.S. Colonies and Dependence), wrote of Cebu in 1914:

In Cebu, the old and the new are blended in a bewildering fashion. A modern concrete warehouse josties a hoary vine-hung old convent; a big steamship from Manila docks beside a native's bamboo banca; a noisy automobile tears past a wooden-wheeled carabao cart. All is life and bustle here, in the are more concerned with the shipment of hemp, copra and sugar than with the historic associations which encircle their town and island.