Mina de São Domingos

Description

During my last vacation, resolvi conhecer uma vez mais um pouco da região do Alentejo, more precisely the surrounding area between Beja and Mértola. During the holiday period, was also one of my goals, visit the ruins of Mine S. Sundays, mining-rail industrial monument, considerado até um ex-libris do concelho de Mértola, aproveitando igualmente para visitar a sua aldeia e respectiva praia fluvial.

Typology

Monument Mining – rail

Location

Cutting the parish Pinto and Santana in the Cambas concelho of Mértola's.

Date of Visit

23-06-2014

Home Use

Mining

Historical Notes

In 1858, a empresa inglesa Mason & Barry, iniciou a exploração da Mina de S. Sundays, and over the years were removed from the earth about 25 Mt minério, cuprífera mainly pyrite with average levels of 1,25% copper, 2/3No zinc and lead and about 15 / 48º sulfur. This mine was even higher mining Portuguese until the nineteen 1930, chegando a empregar diariamente cerca de 1300 workers.

To transport all the collected ore, was built one of the first railways in the country, your reduzida, about 15 km. extension, ligando a Mina ao Porto de Pomorão na margem do Rio Guadiana.Inicialmente, transporting the ore was done through a process called tramway (wagons pulled by mules). Only from 1867 é que foram utilizadas as locomotivas a vapor. No circuito ascendente era muito frequente ver as locomotivas a transportarem para a mina o pessoal e diverso equipamento necessário ao seu funcionamento. A coluna vertebral desta mina era, no doubt, o seu complexo sistema ferroviário iniciado em 1859 and opened in 1862. It was then the main technological advantage that the mine had over other Spanish counterparts.

From the port of Pomarão, the ore was sent to England in a rapid manner and with lower costs. One of the signed agreement will then, was that the company owns the mine is obliged to do dredging the river to the mouth of it to allow good navigability of steamers.

It should be noted also that in their facilities was built the first power plant in Alentejo, which they are permitted to Aldeia S. Sundays spent to have a mains, something very advanced for that time.

From 1875, existence of labor problems linked to wages and working conditions, motivou que a mina passou a passasse a ter uma policia privada evitando, like this, entities Portuguese fossem always calls to control protestos (ok that punishment ler).

At this address one finds a bit of labor history and their struggles to achieve better living conditions.

http://colectivolibertarioevora.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/mina-of-st-Sunday-misery-and-fight-of-geracoes/

The works of the mine continued until 1965, year of exhaustion of ore, situation that prompted the closure of the mine after 108 regular operation.

 

Village of S. Sundays

During the period from the mine , its mining became the major catalyst for local development, then giving rise to the appearance of the Village of Santo Domingo. Its construction followed criteria of urbanization very strict by the business Mason & Barry, being their separate residential areas according to socio-professional hierarchy. It remains to add, that this village was the first place in the existing housing Portugal to have mains, which depended on the power station built for usefulness Mine.

At present, this village is very popular during the summer, mainly due to the existence of a river beach named Big Hunting Reserve, which has good conditions for summer. This freshwater beach was built in the larger of the two existing reservoirs in that place. During the nineteenth century, their water was piped into the mine serving for processing low-grade mineral.

End

 

Search:

The research for this writing was done mainly through the internet as well as some existing information was used in notice boards of mine access.

The old photos (frames) were taken from a film about Mina S. Sundays.

http://pascal.iseg.utl.pt

http://pt.wikipedia.org

http://www.arcgis.com

And now photos…