The Humberstone —eerie Museum under the open sky in Chile

    



Abandoned mining, Humberstone in Northern Chile, about an hour drive from the thriving free port of Iquique, recognized as a valuable heritage. In 2005, UNESCO added the Ghost town in the list of world Heritage sites, giving the eerie place the status of a Museum under the open sky.It all started with the fact that humanity is afraid of starvation and urged scientists to the issue of soil fertility. In the first half of the nineteenth century, it became clear that they need for their growth the plants get nitrogen from the air and from the soil, and his need to return to the fields and gardens.







The solution was nitrate, which for centuries have been doing the gunpowder. But it was expensive up until в1830 on the border of Chile and Peru was not found abundant selitrennoye mine. Layers of the famous Chilean sodium nitrate meter thick matured for centuries in the Atacama desert where it never rains.





The nitrate boom of the nineteenth century was akin to the gold rush. It was thought that nitrate reserves in Chile exceed 90 million tons and of this world good enough for almost forever. В1872 G. James Thomas Humberstone created a company that permanently settled в48 of kilometrage ocean. The town grew like grass in fertilizers.







In search of work here brought together thousands of miners from Peru, Chile and Bolivia, forming a special oasis of culture, matured in the struggle not so much for wealth, how much for life in this waterless area. While selitrennoye kings built their palaces on the shores of the Pacific ocean and indulged in all sorts of excesses.







Here was their language, their customs and laws, there was so much money that the miners after a work shift could afford to go not only in squash, but in the theatre. Everyone in the theater is well preserved and the hall, and the stage and the curtain.







Its heyday the town of Humberstone was made in 1930-40 years. In that time, the old economic model mired in the great depression and the nitrogen fertilizer began to be obtained by the ammonia synthesis, Humberstone survived the upgrade and to avoid bankruptcy.







But the depletion of sodium nitrate to the good has not resulted, and в1958 G. Chileans turned its production in this field. Suddenly left without a job 3 thousand miners. The Humberstone empty.

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