Rosario Mining Company
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The Rosario Mining Company was an American-owned corporation that owned and operated the Rosario mine, a formerly important gold and silver producer in central Honduras.
[edit] History
The mountains around Tegucigalpa were largely known to contain gold and silver deposits since Spanish settlement, which helps to explain why this rugged area was visited by fortune seekers from Central America, the US, and elsewhere. In 1880, after successful negotiations with the fragile Honduran government, The New York and Honduras Rosario Mining Company, was established in the US. The mining firm took a well-known mine in San Juancito, 40 km northeast of Tegucigalpa, and in the next decade produced three million dollars in silver and gold. By the beginning of the 20th century it had more than one thousand workers.
The Rosario had an enormous impact on the local landscape. Entire woods were sacrificed to satisfy the large and growing need of timber, to build the underground installations, buildings and houses. Long tracks were opened to transport wagons and carriages, minerals and men.
The Rosario Mining Company was said to be involved in the change of the Honduras capital from Comayagua to its rival city of Tegucigalpa, which is closer to the mine. The then Honduran President, Mr. Marco Antonio Soto, had shares in the firm. The company, popularly known as El Mineral del Rosario, reached its peak during 1920s when more than three thousand miners worked in the mine, and there was an American consulate at El Rosario. The American firm built housing, offices, terraces, tunnels and several routes which cross the mountain region.
The company became so important in the development of Honduras, that it was here where the first hydroelectric plant was built, the first telegraph, and the first Pepsi bottling plant in Central America. The adjacent town of San Juancito had electical power before the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
Extraction in the mine ceased in 1954, after 75 years, due to a general strike. The intervening half-century has allowed the forest to regrow, and much of the Rosario mine workings are now within La Tigra National Park, a magnet for hikers and nature-lovers.
