The El Pedroso Iron Factory had the first Industrial Blast Furnaces in Spain. You will see the majestic factory that emerges among the mountains and you will be able to unravel the secrets it keeps within its walls and understand the reasons that led the company to its bankruptcy.
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If you want to visit the Factory, click on the button below and book with the Tourist Office
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 Minas de La Lima or the Escuelas Nuevas Culture Center to close the circle and be an expert in the industrial history of El Pedroso
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The phrase that heads this page, by Tomás de Guseme, Governor of Lora del Río in 1757 and one of the promoters of the discovery of Munigua, is part of the first written data about the metallurgical activity that developed the Roman Munigua, and which includes the report made for the Academy of Good Letters of Seville, 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 copper exploitation and metallurgy. And a second one, which starts from this date until the first half of the 3rd century, in which the iron replaces 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 oligistus dams, with high iron content ranging from 58 to 64%. The most important mines were Lime, in galleries, and Navalázaro open sky.
Along with the metallurgical mining activity, Munigua maintained a important agricultural and livestock activityThe two torcularia (oil press) found in both houses attest to this. 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 Visigothic period, mining activity declines throughout Andalusia and is centered in Jaén and Río Tinto.
Some sources from the Muslim period cite the Iron Hill, 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 El Pedroso and Constantina mines. 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.
By 1829 the mines of Monteagudo, El Fontanal, el Cañuelo, Rosalino, San Julián and Juanteniente. After continuous losses, the partners of the Iron Mines Company of El Pedroso y Asociados, have the wisdom to hire the expert Engineer Mr. Francisco 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 faculty director of the El Pedroso Ironworks.
Despite the isolation and ruggedness of the terrain, built roads to connect the mines with the factory, which not only overcame the physical obstacles to production, it also provided the surrounding inhabitants with communications that they lacked.
More of 500 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 makes it 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 at full capacity, in both locations, the first charcoal blast furnaces and coal refining and rolling furnaces built in our country.
Nor the quality of its iron, which was used to make the Elizabeth II Bridge or the bars of the Seville Tobacco Factory, nor that of its products, which range from the moldboards of the plows to large cranes such as the one in the Port of Seville or the famous files 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 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.
He railway, that could have linked Peñarroya to El Pedroso, supplying the smelter with mineral coal, would never do so. And the one that provided a commercial outlet between Mérida and Seville arrived in 1884, already too late for the El Pedroso y Aggregates Mines Company, which closed its doors that same year.
In 1877, a new business attempt arose, creating the Company of Mines and Iron Factories of El Pedroso, but 11 years later this steel period ended in our region and consequently in Andalusia.
The closure of the company, dragged down shareholders and creditors Although the company was in the hands of solvent people, the vision they had of the business was not correct, and according to the press of the time, Revista Minera 1888, “They were not up to the standards that should technically be required for their exploitation and performance.”, to which was added, according to this medium, the lack of coordination between industrial and commercial actions. Focusing on the final failure, on the wrong decisions of the Board of Directors.
They sized an excessive factory, with the need to place a large number of products on the market, when it was necessary to maintain less technical production and bring more specialized products to the market using the Bessemer process, a system for mass manufacturing steel ingots, quality and low cost.
If you want to go next to the Factory on a hiking route, click the button below.
Go to the Huéznar Stations route
CIF: P4107300H
Telephone: 954 88 90 01
Fax: 954 88 93 13
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