Along with the Etelvinas mines in the Hueria de Carrocera valley, in nearby San Martín county, these were the company’s only mines until the early twentieth century, when it evolved to become the foremost coal mining concern in Spain. By that time La Nalona Mine was already an emblematic site for the company, and this is why it decided to dig its first vertical shaft coal mine there, soon to be followed by Sotón, Mosquitera and many others.
The buildings at Fondón mine cover a wide span of time – some date from the original underground expansion, such as the 1915 powerhouse and the Nineteen Forties dressing room barracks, electrical repair shop, and offices. And yet there is a visible homogeneity – brickwork, stone foundations, impost lines, windows, mouldings – which defines a model the company would use again and again. The loading dock was renovated in the Fifties, and features some remarkable murals.
This mine’s history is one of the richest in the region, and includes events such as supposed finding a dinosaur; flooding it to put out a terrible fire; becoming a penal colony, where the vanquished in the Civil War would mine coal for the winners; being the final resting place for the ashes of HUNOSA’s president, José Manuel Fernández Felgueroso; demolishing one of its headframes; housing the company’s historical archives The complex history of the first mine owned by the once powerful Duro Felguera.
Faustino Suárez Antuña
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