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On highway 1 to the south, at 48 km (30 mi) from La Paz you will find El Triunfo. This is a small town that operated gold and silver mines during the colonial times. In 1878, the El Progresso Mining Company started to work here and in 1890 the population increased from 175 to more than 4,000 persons, many of them Italians, English, French, Germans and Chinese, in addition to the Mexican people who came from far away looking for a jobs as engineers, workers, machinists, miners or smelters. The chimney called “La Ramona” was made according to a design made by Gustav Eiffel. Because of its prosperity, this town was the first one with electricity and telephone services. El Progreso Minning Company left the town in 1912 and the town lost its progress when the available technology was not sufficient to take out the mineral veins still hidden in the mountains.
Now, El Triunfo is a beautiful place for a visit to see the old Minning Company ruins, “La Ramona” chimney (and a smaller one called “Julia”), vistas, antique architecture that still keep secrets and the church that is a colorful building by the side of the road. If you go by the “Camino Real de Santa Ana”, that used to connect El Triunfo with San Antonio, you will find some buildings more than a hundred years old and some mines like “El Hormiguero”, “Santa Rosa” and “Mina Mendoceña”.
San Antonio, the same as El Triunfo, was an abundant silver vein zone at middle XVIII century and tapped out the same as its neighbor, at the beginning of XX century. You can visit now by walking the beautiful “Camino Real”, an 8 km (5 mi) dirt road, or taking the highway 1 to the south.
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