EL PATRIMONIO INDUSTRIAL
The most human history of the natural park
Goierri mining sites
Right on the border of the natural park, we can approach and enjoy the history and heritage of two of the most important reserves in the Basque Country. In Mutiloa, iron ore was, since medieval times, the main supplier of the active forges of the upper basins of the Urola and Oria river valleys. At the end of the 19th century, a more organized and systematic exploitation was created. To achieve this, several infrastructures were built, such as the mining railroad that ran through the area from Barnaola (Mutiloa) to Ormaiztegi.
Mining has also been an unequivocal fact in Zerain since the Middle Ages. The most intense activity began in the middle of the 19th century and at the end of that same century foreign capital companies, English, Dutch and German companies reorganized the reserve and began to work in a systematic way with the installation of new technological elements: internal mining railroads, calcination furnaces, aerial cables....
This activity has left us an interesting landscape and cultural heritage where the calcination workshop stands out with its three impressive furnaces that welcome us next to the Aizpitta Interpretation Center.
Ajuria & Urigoitia Industrial Forest
The environment of the Ajuria and Urigoitia foundry in Araia (Asparrena, Araba) is one of the most beautiful industrial landscapes of the Basque Country: dams, forests, coal bunkers, warehouses...
It is one of the first steelworks in the country, located at the entrance of the Aizkorri-Aratz Natural Park, a place where nature and industry are inseparable.
Although other forges existed in Araia before, the foundry complex "San Pedro de Araia" or Ajuria factory, as it is known today, was undoubtedly the most outstanding of all. The first electric induction furnace in Spain and one of the first blast furnaces in the Basque Country was installed there, as well as the first modern iron and steel company together with Bolueta in Bizkaia.
The Ajuria factory has had several milestones throughout its history, among others, in 1929, it became the only company in the state that continued to produce sweet iron by the puddling process, and since 1933 it was the only producer of charcoal ingot. In 1906, it started up the first electric furnace in Spain to manufacture steel.
At the end of the 19th century, its owners built the "El Nacedero" dam to take greater advantage of the area's hydraulic resources.
In summary, the Ajuria factory "contributed as novelties an analysis of the technological changes in the steel industry, a deep knowledge of the markets absolutely unknown until then, the birth of the industrial posters, a wide information about the workers' standard of living and the strategies of a family business to reinvest the profits. From those plant profits came important firms such as Ajuria y Aranzábal, the sugar factory or La Iberia, the original nucleus of Altos Hornos de Vizcaya".
More info about industrial tourism in the Basque Country: https://turismo.euskadi.eus/turismo-industrial/