El Pedroso Iron Factory

The “El Pedroso Iron Factory” were the first Industrial Blast Furnaces in Spain.

You can take a guided tour through the Tourist Office (tel 619 92 14 32) where you can see the majestic factory that emerges among the mountains and be able to unravel the secrets it keeps within its walls and understand the reasons that led the company to its bankruptcy.

Without a doubt, it is an activity where you can connect and let yourself be carried away by its nature, simultaneously immersing yourself in the industrial history and mysteries that surround the factory.

We recommend this activity if you have already visited the La Lima Mines or the Escuelas Nuevas Culture Center to close the circle and be an expert in the industrial history of El Pedroso

The mines of El Pedroso between the Roman Munigua and Felipe II.

The phrase that heads this page, by Tomás de Guseme (Governor of Lora del Rio in 1757 and one of the promoters of the discovery of Munigua) is part of the first written data on the metallurgical activity carried out by the Roman Munigua, and which includes the report made for the Academia de las Buenas Letras de Sevilla, after one of the first visits to the municipality of Munich.

The two periods of development of this city, which came to hold the title of Municipium Flavium Muniguensis, go from the second half of the 1st century BC to the first half of the 1st century AD. C, dedicated to the exploitation and metallurgy of copper. And a second one, which starts from this date until the first half of the 3rd century, when iron replaced the copper metal.

In copper, they start from the farms of the previous occupants located in the closest area and up to Puerto Cid. This results in a depletion of these deposits, which they replace with the iron deposits, which are further away, but which the iron mineralizations of El Pedroso will more than cover, both in quantity and quality, since the massive mineral dominates in pockets of magnetite and dams of oligistus, with high iron content ranging from 58 to 64%. The most important mines were La Lima, in galleries, and Navalázaro in the open pit.

Along with the mining and metallurgical activity, Munigua maintained an important agricultural and livestock activity, attested to by the two torcularia (oil press) found in both houses. Likewise, the excavations have provided vestiges of an important livestock farm specialized in pigs and cattle along with a smaller one of goats and sheep. Large and small game still existing in the area is also found in the diet of its inhabitants.
After this time, and in the Visigoth period, mining activity declines throughout Andalusia and is centered in Jaén and Río Tinto.

Some sources from the Muslim era cite the Cerro del Hierro, but recovery will only begin with the Christian conquest and repopulation starting in the 13th century.
It will be in 1499 when the Royal Settlement on the mines of El Pedroso and Constantina is agreed. Concessions were granted for its exploitation between 1514 and 1539 on the mines of El Pedroso, Constantina, Alanís, Cazalla, La Puebla de los lnfantes and San Nicolás del Puerto.

We will have to wait until Philip II so that, during his reign, an appropriate mining law is promulgated that gave rise to this activity being promoted.

The mining and industrial Pedroso

By 1829 the mines of Monteagudo, El Fontanal, Cañuelo, Rosalino, San Julián and Juanteniente were already active. After continuous losses, the partners of the Iron Mines Company of El Pedroso y Asociados have the wisdom to hire the expert Engineer Mr. José Antonio de Elorza, a military man exiled for the support he gave to General Torrijos. There will be innumerable difficulties overcome by the tenacity of the new optional director of the El Pedroso Ironworks.

Despite the isolation and ruggedness of the terrain, he built roads to connect the mines with the factory, which not only overcame the physical obstacles to production, but also provided the surrounding inhabitants with communications that they lacked.

More than five hundred workers, some with their families, came to settle in the place, and more than two thousand families lived from the direct activity generated by this industry, whose prestige led it to be worthy of the Gold Medal of the Industrial Exhibition in 1841.
In 1844, Elorza was hired by the Trubia factory (Oviedo), but he not only left the El Pedroso irons at the highest level of quality and production, apart from the infrastructure, he marked new ways of working, establishing labor relations in based on contracts and different social services.
Elorza's period ended with the peak of Andalusian production, which with the El Pedroso and Río Verde Factory Factories in Marbella, generated at that time close to 80% of the iron that was produced in Spain, leaving it at full capacity, in both locations, the first charcoal blast furnaces and coal refining and rolling to be built in our country.

Neither the quality of its iron, which was used to make the Isable II Bridge or the bars of the Seville Tobacco Factory... nor that of its elaborations, which range from the moldboards of the plows to large cranes like the one in the Port of Seville or the famous limes of El Pedroso, nor the awards received, will make it possible to save the fall of the companies that tackled this Andalusian industry.

Madrid in 1841, Vienna in 1851 and London in 1873 will recognize these values by granting them glory in their International Exhibitions. But at the same time, the Port of Thames is the shipping point for coke, which reaches the factories in the north of Spain at a lower cost than to the isolated south.
There are no tariff favors from the government. Charcoal will continue to be our main, expensive and unprofitable fuel.

The railway that could have linked Peñarroya to El Pedroso, supplying the smelter with mineral coal, would never be built, and the one that provided a commercial outlet between Mérida and Seville arrived in 1884. Too late for the El Pedroso Mines and Aggregates Company that closes that same year.

In 1877, a new business attempt arose, creating the Company of Mines and Iron Factories of El Pedroso, but eleven years later this steelmaking period came to an end in our region and consequently in Andalusia.

El cierre de la Compañía, arrastró a accionistas y acreedores pese a que la sociedad estaba en manos de personas solventes, pero la visión que tenían del negocio no fue la acertada, y según la prensa de la época, (Revista Minera 1888) “no estaban a la altura que técnicamente se les debería exigir para su explotación y rendimiento”, a lo que se une, según este medio, la descoordinación entre actuaciones industriales y comerciales. Centrando el fracaso final, en las decisiones equivocadas del Consejo de Administración. Dimensionaron una fábrica excesiva, con necesidad de situar en el mercado un gran número de productos, cuando se debió mantener una producción menos técnica y sacar al mercado productos más especializados a partir del procedimiento Bessemer, un sistema para fabricar en serie lingotes de acero, de calidad y a bajo coste.