Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works

Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works - Ghost Town - Chili Pozo Almonte Chile Humberstone and Santa Laura are located 48 km east of the city of Iquique in the Atacama Desert in the Region of Tarapacá in northern Chile. Situated in the remote desert Pampa, one of the driest deserts on earth, thousands of pampinos lived and worked in this hostile environment, for over 60 years, from 1880, to process the largest deposit of saltpeter in the world, producing the fertilizer sodium nitrate that was to transform agricultural lands in North and South America, and in Europe, and produce great wealth for Chile. Because of the vulnerability of the structures and because of the impact of a recent earthquake, the site was also placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger, to help mobilize resources for its conservation. We were allowed to fly for 3 hours. Copyright © 2015 Freeway Prod. All rights reserved - Toute utilisation est strictement interdite sans autorisation. This town was founded in 1862, around a nitrate mine in La Palma, although the name of Humberstone did not come with it’s foundation, but later, in 1925, when it was named after the mine manager who brought prosperity to the settlement. Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works - the best aerial videos. Both Humberstone and Santa Laura, the nearby town, have made the most of the period in which nitrate trade was on great demand.Founded in 1862 as the nitrate mining center of Oficina La Palma. In 1925, it was renamed Humberstone after the British mine manager who bolstered the small town’s wealth. Both Humberstone and nearby Santa Laura boomed together from their shared nitrate production. The towns saw their heydays as a combined nitrate mining and processing center in the 1930s and ’40s [source: Nuestro]. Nitrate is an essential ingredient in fertilizer, but in the ’30s, a cheap synthetic substitute was create­d, effectively rendering nitrate (also called saltpeter) obsolete.With the need for mined nitrate diminished, the towns of Humberstone and Santa Laura began to decline alongside the industry they were built on. coolinterestingstuff.com