Address: La Sierra, district: Sierra, canton: Abangares, province: Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Zone postal code: 50702.
GPS Coordinates of La Sierra of Abangares: 10.285153,-84.928342 (10°17’6.55″N, 84°55’42.03″W)
Schedule: from Tuesday to Sunday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Phone: +506 2690-5236, +506 2690-5239, +506 2662 0004
The Abangares Mine Ecomuseum Costa Rica was founded in 1991, located precisely where there was the gold processing plant, rescuing the buildings and machinery that was used at the time of the gold rush in Costa Rica.
In the museum, there is an outdoor exhibition of mining machinery and an exhibit hall with old photographs and miner objects such as crucibles, carburetors, pulleys, an oven, etc. When you climb to the top you can see the stone ruins of the Former Mazos Building that crushed 100 tons of gold material every day for the 30 years that the mine worked. It resembles impressive indigenous archaeological ruins. At the museum there is a dynamo or Pelton that was used in the hydroelectric plant, an air blade or wagons loader and one of the steam trains called the Tulita, in honor of the mines manager wife in 1904, Mr. Hito, the machine carried mine material to the Mazos from the nearby mines.
In general at the Abangares Mine Ecomuseum you can learn about gold mining with the available machinery, tunnels, photos, trucks. Available services: tours, night walks, thermal pools, restaurant and accommodation.
History of Abangares Mine
The story begins in 1884 when Juan Alvarado Acosta discovered the mine and in 1887 he sold it to Vicente, Paulino and Rafael Acosta who called the mine “Three Brothers”. In 1889 the company was sold to the Anglo American Exploration Development Company Limited, during the government of Rafael C. Iglesias, and then into the hands of the Abangares Gold Fields.
Abangares is known as the Costa Rica mining canton, as it was the location of the largest gold mining project in the history of Costa Rica. The main mining district was La Sierra of Abangares, where Minor Cooper Keith placed his company the Abangares Gold Fields, the Costa Rican gold processing plant. Another Abangares district in which the gold extraction also influenced was Las Juntas, where mines were developed and where workers converged on the weekends to drink and play poker. The name “Abangares” is derived from the name of the former indigenous chief
of the area which was “Avancari” in the Nahuatl language means “God of the waters” or “God of the marshes”. Avancari was accredited the force and flow of the river that crosses the canton today called “Río Abangares” (Abangares River).
The name of the La Sierra district comes from the mountain range that crosses the territory and the name of Las Juntas has a very peculiar etymology. The story tells that after payday the miners met at the nearest town to drink and play poker (as noted above), and this activity was called “Las Juntas”.
After obtaining the mine, began the mining exploration and new mines were created all over the mountain range of La Sierra of Tilarán in the Abangares territories. Gold exploitation techniques were imported which raised the gold processing productivity. The application of cyanide, mercury and gold spraying with complex equipment such as breaker or decks boxes, filters, grinders, air compressors, locomotives, lifts, determined the areas big development (which is compared with the development that caused the gold rush in California), in such a way that for 1901 there was a Commissariat (small market), hospital, shops, hotels, workshops, ice factory, telegraph and electrical substation.
The mining attracted immigrants from many different places. The workers mass was formed throughout Costa Rica and Central America. The Italians were brought to work as stonecutters or stone laborers for the construction of the Mazos Building base (where gold was processed). Jamaicans were the foremen, and Chinese, German, English and North Americans conducted administrative tasks. Mining gave a lot of capital to Minor Keith but in 1931, the company left the region due to the 1929 crisis or depression in USA as well as the scarcity of gold deposits.
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