20 21 cerro de pasco The greatest investment of the XXth century the Empresa Socavonera del Cerro de Pasco (Cerro de Pasco Mineshaft Company), which undertook to dewater these mining properties by means of building a tunnel. On the Board of the company were prominent local miners of the time, such as Messrs. Baldomero and Ramon Aspillaga, Juan and Isaac Alzamora, Jose Payan, Roberto Pflucker, Ismael de la Quintana and Manuel Ortiz de Zevallos, among others. This was the last local bastion resisting the corporation’s attempts to gain control over all that region, since the government recognised their rights over those properties. It was a tough negotiation and Cerro finally agreed to purchase all the properties and mining assets of La Socavonera in exchange for three million dollars’ worth of shares in its company, three times what the locals had invested. The Fate of Colquijirca After successive exploration and mining works dating back to Colonial times, the Colquijirca mine had ended up being owned by Manuel Clotet, a Spanish citizen, who in 1884 would transfer it to his son-in-law, Mr. Eulogio Fernandini, who was well known throughout all of Pasco and the central Andes. Mr. Eulogio worked with a Germanic discipline, which he had acquired in Germany and Austria, where he had been sent as a teen-ager to treat a serious intestinal infection. At the age of 22 he returned to Peru and found employment at the Gallo brothers’ mines and was able to save a small amount of capital. Some years later he would marry Isolina Clotet, daughter of Mr. Manuel. From that moment onwards, he took charge of the Colquijirca mines, which under his tenacity and drive, would reach their heyday. The mining works began in 1886, but it would take him thirteen years to find the famous silver, lead and zinc vein that would make the area famous. Subsequently in 1889 he built the Huaracaca smelter, the second most important one in the country after Casapalca, then owned by the Backus & Johnston concern. In the company of his close friend, Antenor Rizo Patron he installed two electrical plants that derived their power from the reservoir built at Punrun lake. However, his interests were not restricted to mining. He was also successful in livestock farming and agriculture, with 200.000 sheep and several properties for sugar and cotton growing in the coastal valleys, especially the Comas and Pro plantations in the valley of Lima. At this point, Cerro de Pasco was already one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country. In 1872 an office of the Bank of Peru and London had been opened, along with the twelve vice-consulates installed in the city’s narrow streets. Among them were those of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Consular Agency of the Kingdom of Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, France and the Consulate of Sardinia, representing the Kingdom of Sardinia, which now forms part of Italy. All of these were the zealous guardians and promoters of small investments made by Italians, Germans, Britons, Spaniards, Serbs, French, and Greeks, among others, all lured by the historical mining wealth of the region. The Spanish of Colonial times were followed by other European entrepreneurs, with British investment occupying a prominent place. It was only at the end of the century, with the arrival of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation, of the International Petroleum Company and the consequences of the First World War that British predominance was to end in Peru. In the early part of the XXth century, the El Minero daily newspaper for the Central Andes noted: “The arrival of great industrial mining can be seen with the presence of numerous U.S. engineers. This only serves to confirm that the “Yankees” have taken over the city, since out of 522 registered mines, the 360 most important ones have been sold”. Some time later, in its edition of October 3, 1901, the same paper published: “James McFarland of United States citizenship, has laid claim before the court presided by Dr. Estanislao Solis, the local judge, to Left– One of the first concentrators installed in Cerro de Pasco, a short time after the arrival of the corporation. Right– Trusted personnel of Mr.Eulogio Fernandini in Colquijirca, in front of the administrative offices of the business concern that had his name.
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