anden.at
Discover the Andes
Humberstone
by Michael Grasl and Daniel Pöppl
anden.at
Discover the Andes
by Michael Grasl and Daniel Pöppl
In the title image you can see the former saltpetre processing plant of Humberstone. This factory is located near twenty degree southern latitude at the edge of the Pampa del Tamarugal in the Atacama desert, one of the most arid environments in the world. The soils of this area bear the richest deposit of sodium nitrate (Chile saltpetre) worldwide. Since the time when saltpetre was discovered as a fertilizer, it has been mined in that area. Because of its high economic value, saltpetre was formerly titled white gold. It is therefore not surprising that even a war was fought for the rights to exploit the saltpetre deposits, involving Bolivia, Chile, and Peru - known as the War of the Pacific. But - what actually is saltpetre, and why was the factory abandoned?
By clicking on the title image you can switch between views of the saltpetre processing plant and the town of Humberstone.
What is saltpetre?
Click on the graphics in order to restart the animation.
The term saltpetre stands for different types of commonly occurring nitrates. In Humberstone, sodium nitrate was most commonly mined, colloquially known as Chile saltpetre. This type of saltpetre develops in hot and arid areas void of vegetation, due to the decomposition of animal faeces such as guano, and its accumulation as caliche. The by far largest deposits of this resource are found in the north of Chile and in southern Peru.
The rush for saltpetre and its economic consequences
In the 19th century, saltpetre was the only known source of nitrogen to be used for the production of fertilizers (but also for weaponry). It is therefore not surprising, that the discovery of the importance of nitrogen as a fertilizer resulted in a saltpetre boom in the north of today's Chile (belonging to the territory of Peru in those days).
Most of the saltpetre mines and plants were owned by British companies or local investors, who gained a huge amount of money and power through export of saltpetre. But not only the owners profited from the saltpetre business, also the national economy experienced an economic boost: in 1910, Chile produced 65% of the global demand of fertilizers, and saltpetre accounted for 80% of the country's export.
It was just a ghost town that remained ...
Directly beside the saltpetre mine and processing plant there is the town of Humberstone. However, it is not inhabited any more, but protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is not the only ghost town in the Atacama desert: few hundreds of kilometres in southeastern direction, the ghost town of Chuquicamata can be found in direct vicinity to a copper mine.
Click on the arrows or in the image to switch between the views of the ghost towns of Humberstone and Chuquicamata.
Humberstone
The saltpetre boom ended with the beginning of World War I. The sea route became unsecure and blocked. After the Haber-Bosch method had been developed in Germany for the synthetic production of saltpetre, the exploitation of the desert soils did not any more bring the desired profit. The saltpetre business in the Atacama desert collapsed in the 1950s, and the saltpetre works of Humberstone were finally closed down in 1961. The saltpetre works and the town were made accessible as a museum in the 1970s, and included in the UNESCO World heritage in 2005.
There are 130 of those industrial places in Chile, determining the life of the people and generating labour and income. Therefore, workers settled around those places. Entire settlements developed closes to the saltpetre works, so that shops, hospitals, water containers etc. can be found there as relicts of times that have long gone. Due to the strong winds, earthquakes, and theft, the buildings have been suffering a substantial degree of decay.
Chuquicamata
The situation in Chuquicamata is completely different: this one of the largest copper mines in the world (see the contribution on the Chuquicamata Copper Mine) employs approx. 12,000 people. A town was built directly beside the mine, in order to enable the miners and their families to live closer to their working places, and in order to impose a higher level of dependency onto the employees. The town had an own hospital, a school, a railway and even a police. Even an own currency was introduced in order to force the miners to do their shopping directly in the town. As indicated by the name of the Hotel Washington shown on the right side of the photo, there was a considerable North American influence.
Nowadays the town is uninhabited, even though the last citizens were resettled to the nearby city of Calama as late as 2007. Therefore, the buildings are generally modern and in good condition. The mine operator justifies the resettlement with the presence of toxic substances, putting the health of the inhabitants at risk. However, it is also said that the town would be an obstacle for the enlargement of the mine: there would be copper underneath the town which the operator would like to exploit, so that the people had to leave the town. Anyway, the dump sites of the mine have already consumed part of the town.
Ghost towns also exist in other parts of the world. They are often related to (abandoned) mining activties (for example Bodie in California), but sometimes to natural risks or even disasters: the town of Craco in southern Italy was abandoned due to landslide damage and risk, whereas Beichuan in China was destroyed in 2008 due to a major earthquake and the resulting landslides. It was later rebuilt in another place.
.Video clip of a drone flight over the ghost town of Humberstone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5BnAxUSyS8
Brühwiller, T. (2014): Chiles tragende Säule. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 January 2014 [Access source]
Peters, R. (2015): Chuquicamata - Der Schlund aus dem das Kupfer kommt. ntv, 22 August 2015 [Access source]
Romanowski, C. (2011): Humberstone - Eine Stadt auf Zeit. SWR, 21 September 2011 [Access source]
Wisniak, J. & Garces, I. (2001): The rise and fall of the salitre (sodium nitrate) industry. Indian Journal of Chemical Technology 8: 427-438 [Access source]
Wikipedia article about the saltpetre works of Humberstone and Santa Laura [Access source]
Wikipedia article about Chuquicamata [Access source]
This contribution was revised, extended, and translated from German by Martin Mergili.