Sewell Mining Town in Chile

Sewell Mining Town - Chile

Located at 2,000 m in the Andes, 60 kms to the east of Rancagua, in surroundings marked by extremes of the climate, town was built by Sewell Mining by the Braden copper society to 1905 house workers in it what should become the biggest subterranean copper in the world meinig, El Teniente. It is an excellent example of the company towns which were born in many distant parts of the world by the coalescence of the local work and means of an industrialized nation, to meinig and work on high-quality mineral resources. The town was built on a terrain too precipitously for wheeled vehicles around big front stairs which rise to the railway station. Along his way formal squares of the irregular figure with decorative trees and works used the public main rooms or squares of the town. The buildings which line the streets are yellow timber, often painted in the lively green, red and blue. At his point Sewell counted 15,000 inhabitants, but became mainly in the 1970s leave.

Wonderful Universal Importance

Town of Sewell Mining, laid more than 2,200 ms about the sea level, there climbs the infertile slope of lot Kettengebirge of the Andes of central Chile about the biggest subterranean copper in the world meinig, El Teniente up. The first copper companies town in Chile (of the main producers of this metal in the world), the jetzt unoccupied Sewell is an excellent example of the global phenomenon of company towns in which settlements were founded in distant parts of the world to pull out and mineral resources - in this case, to work on high-quality copper. These company towns were created typically by a coalescence of the local work with the outside capital and means. Town of Sewell Mining is especially a state person for his contribution to the global propagation of the full-scale mine technology.

The origins of Sewell go back till 1905 when the Chilean government American mining engineer William Braden authorized to use the meinige copper. In an epic commercial effort built Braden streets, a concentrator work, camp and a railroad which connected this distant place with the town of Rancagua 60 kms away. El Teniente and the town of Sewell were owned by American societies till 1971 when the copper industry was naturalized and became the property of the state which, at the end of 1960, had already become the main shareholder. Sewell had spread out bit by bit to accommodate 15,000 people in 175,000 square meters at the moment of his maximum development in 1968. Then the town slowly lost population when the society dissolved that it was more efficient to move his workers to Rancagua. A process of the demolition ended in the 1990s, as a policy orients for the protection and preservation of the side was carried out.

Sewell is a company town of the big genuineness. This is as the Ciudad de read Escaleras (town of steps) or Ciudad Derramada en el Cerro (town propagation Below the hill) because of his urban configuration on the precipitous Andean slope famously. These dramatic inclinations caused an organic design characterized by an exclusively pedestrian's circulation-system of steps, and paths, with public places built on small open areas between the buildings. The building of buildings and industrial possibilities shows big creativity and quality in the use of the wood and steel. Their architectural expression is marked by the severity, functionality and impression of the modernism.

Most excellent attributes of the property are the industrial installations which use the slope inclination for the Mineralschleifprozess; the buildings which connect houses on the upper floors with the business or services in the first floor; the office buildings, public rooms and pedestrian's circulation-system; the electric infrastructure and drinking water and sewage management systems; the regular and different nets of whistle which cross the town, as well as the Rebolledo bridge; and the urban design and the position of the ensemble in the stiff Andean scenery. Under the industrial installations the Concentrator come out (still in the working rules) and the energy infrastructure, as well as the Punta de Rieles (the end of rails) sector in the highest point on the property. In Sewell a special culture - a combination of the Chilean and American duty was survived hammeredly - with his previous inhabitants and her descendants.

Historical Data

The existence el Teniente copper depositions seems to have been diminished famously and in preb sharp-panic times. During 15. - 17-th centuries were exported raw materials by the Spaniards and then for 200 years there was little activity. In 1897 then the owner of the mine rights began an overview about the copper seams in the area. The gigantic potential of the side finding out, and the fact that the extraction of the copper would require big investment, an approach, was done in 1903 to North American mining engineer William Braden who had taken part in the big exhibit in Santiago in 1894.

Braden came in Chile next year, in 1904, and the begun acquisition of the property. Almost immediately a street was built to the next railroad line on Rancagua. Braden joined to forces with E W Nash, president of the American smelting and the Raffinierung of the society and with cash tone Sewell, to the founder and vice-presidents, they created the Braden copper society.

In the course of the next two years the infrastructure, duty freeing became coordinatedly from the government of Chile for the big amounts of the machinery developed which is to be imported from the United States and meinige stattete from. Before 1906 had been put up the first mill and concentrator, lifting founded and an installed electric generator. All these works enclosed what was then innovative technology, but in extremely distant and hostile surroundings which led at the beginning to repercussions. However, the mining was officially authorized and begun in 1905.

In 1909 withdrawing led in the United States to finance trouble, and fresh capital was injected by a society which hears the home Guggen to brothers who took all together control in 1915 and the Braden copper society became a subsidiary of the Kennecott copper union. The operation base for the company was laid in Rancagua which developed fast as a town. In 1917 the old foundry was substituted to Sewell with more modern in Caletones where a new town also developed.

Although the society, conditions on the meinige one was well-to-do, workers were not good in relation on the industrial safety. In 1945 a major, tragically, seemed to disaster which steered attention on the problems: a fire in the entrance to meinigen sent smoke to the galleries under the suffocation of 355 workers to death. The 'smoke tragedy' led to a government investigation and a widespread national debate on the excessiveness of the security legislation and the power exercised by foreign societies. The society answered, a big department of the industrial safety developing.

By the 1950s Chile had become the second largest copper producer in the world. As a result of 'Chilenization' in 1967 the government of Chile won an interest of 51% meinigen, and in 1971 the industry was naturalized, and the society became a department of the copper union of Chile. This brought club to changes like the El Teniente, the self-service restaurant of the miners and the class of a lodging and other buildings will be torn off.

In this time a decision was brought to move the population of Sewell further below the valley to make available better possibilities. The town was given up as a mine settlement in 1980, in the partial use as a dormitory for the staff of contractors remaining, and this led to the modification of some of the buildings and the other demolition of others. 

Demolition will let, in the end, at the end of the 1980s do hold, and in 1998 the town a national monument was explained. Nevertheless, meinige still acts, and now el Teniente department of the copper union generates 3% of copper of the worlds.

Source:whc/unesco