SMDF Historical Archives

Sociedad Metalúrgica Duro Felguera merged in 1906 with Unión Hullera y Metalúrgica de Asturias. Sixty years later (1966-1968), as a result of the crisis in private mining and steelmaking and the company's own strategic decisions, the steelmaking section of Duro Felguera was integrated into UNINSA and the mining section transferred into HUNOSA. Thirty years later (1991), after more than one hundred and thirty years of activity, it became Grupo Duro Felguera.

The archives of such an intense and long-lived industrial activity could well have been neglected by its owners due to the priority of other business needs. However, this is not the case. This could be due to the will of the founders and the successive directors of the company, together with a solid corporate identity and with the decision to set up a historical archives’ institution in the 1990s. This institution managed to save a valuable collection of documents that nowadays are part of the company heritage, as well as a source of precious information for research.

The archives headquarters, located in Langreo, hold the documentation of the companies that are part of the history of Duro Felguera. These are, among others, Carbonera de Langreo y Siero, Unión Hullera, Compañía de Asturias, Societé Anonyme de Carbonisation, Carbones del Pontico S.A., Construcciones Algacesa S.A., Duro y Compañía and Sociedad Metalúrgica Duro Felguera.

The part of the collection related to the mining activities of the company until 1967 is also worth mentioning. It was kept apart in that year and sent to HUNOSA, where it is currently conserved. The iron-and-steel-related collection was sent to UNINSA (taken over by ENSIDESA in 1973). However, only a copy book of letters from 1863 has been apparently conserved from this collection. A part of the historical collection is also preserved in the Heritage Service and in the Madrid offices.  Its figures, according to the last updates, are the following:

• Archival collection:

Dates: 1847-2002

8,140 boxes, 4,600 A-Z folders, 639 account books, 1,070 packing boxes, 173 metres of loose documentation, 80,000 employee files (since 1880) and 300,000 maps. Altogether, more than 1,900 metres of shelving.

Eduardo Núñez Fernández