Riópar-Cartagena: A common History

The Metallurgical Company of San Juan de Alcaraz and Cartagena

Trademark:
The cross of  Caravaca

Since 1833, and for 150 years, the provinces of Albacete and Murcia were linked and belonged to the same Region. The Factories of Riópar, belonged to Alcaraz's side (Albacete), were located within the province of La Mancha . Federico de Botella and Hornos studies them and includes them within his geologic map of the provinces of Murcia and Albacete, in 1868. 

Luis de la Escosura y Morrogh

Riópar and Cartagena  are linked by their mining and manufacturing history, holding hands with  "La Compañìa Metalúrgica  de San Juan de Alcaraz", which gave a new direction to the production of the first brass factories in Spain. It was constituted as a private company in 1846, and this happened to be the most productive stage of the factories of San Juan, which raised its reputation all over Spain and even outside our borders. The greatly distinguished chemist and mine engineer Luis de la Escosura, worked for the Company in Riópar and Cartagena. He found in Riópar the management of the calamine breeding ground, rationalizing and remarkably increasing the highly valuable zinc production. 

The investment in foreign machinery, the object care and design (shown in houses, churches and palaces) and the marketing spreading strategies when first advertising was created turned the bronze and brass items made in Riópar famous and awarded in the Universal Exhibitions of the 19th century. It was in these Exhibitions were concepts like industrial design were defined and influenced western taste. 

In 1869, the ex-prime minister Juan Bravo Murillo was managing the Company, turning it into the pioneer of Remington cartridges production: millions of pieces were manufactured in its workshops. It was under Bravo Murillo's management when the steam engine was introduced in the Armor building  , whose chimney still remains in "El Laminador" (the Rolling mill).

Machinery from the copper factory
of Santa Lucia, 1879 

In 1874 the Company built up a new establishment in Santa Lucia (Cartagena), which was a well-known copper factory, under Luis de la Escosura's management.  Copper tubes were made there with no weld, and provided with material to the Arsenal of Cartagena and the railway. It was thus wanted to fix the transport issues, and to be near the raw material: copper from Cartagena. Nowadays there is not material left in the district of Santa Lucia, but there is very interesting evidence such as the printmaking from 1879, in which it is possible to appreciate the magnitude of its facilities and machinery. These machines were working through six steam engines brought from England. Some of these machines were transferred to San Juan once these facilities closed down, at the end the 19th century.

 The mining crisis in Cartagena and the strong development of the zinc industry in the Cantabrian coast, made an impression on the competitiveness of the company at the end of the 19th century. The copper factory of Santa Lucia was taken down in 1907, when a construction magazine from the time "La Construcción Moderna" announced it was on sale. Some of the machinery was then transferred Sierra de Alcaraz. There would be a hundred more years of work, art and history in the "Fábricas de San Juan de Riópar" until the factories last closed in 1996 and were converted into the current "Museo de las Reales Fàbricas de San Juan de Alcaraz", an industrial museum in the village of Riópar.