Atacama Desert Ghost Town

The Atacama Desert is an amazing place - renownedindustry and took control of nearly all nitrate production.
as the driest place on earth it conjures up images of aDuring this boom period towns sprang up around the
desolate barren wilderness. Which, of course much ofnitrate plants.
it is, but it is also a land of great natural beauty andThe best preserved of these towns is Humberstone,
fascinating human history. One such period of itsbuilt in 1862 and named after a later owner, James
colourful history was the nitrates boom, which resultedHumberstone. It is located inland from the city of
in the British ghost towns, that still stand, arrogantlyIquique in an area known as the Pampa - a plateau
Victorian in uninhabited parts of the desert where itbetween the costal mountains and the Andes.
never rains.Humberstone, like the other nitrate towns, is a ghost
Nitrates first began to be commercially exploited in thetown.
1860 when the Atacama Desert belonged to Peru andThe invention of a synthetic method for producing
Bolivia. However, in 1878 a dispute between Chile andammonium nitrate killed the booming business off as
Bolivia over export licences resulted in Chile sendingquickly as it had sprung up. Walking through the
troops to the region to protect her interests. Wardeserted streets of Humberstone you get the sense
broke out with Peru joining in on the side of Bolivia. Thethat its inhabitants fled a great natural disaster.
result of the ensuing five year war was that ChileEverything is as it was then, just aged by the harsh
remained in possession of the Atacama and itssun and cold nights. There is a church, a theatre, the
nitrates.humble dwellings of the workers, the grand houses of
Nitrates were in much demand in Europe and Norththe managers and the processing plant. The only
America as the raw material for fertilisers and thesound is the dry desert wind blowing through the long
production of explosives. After the war Britishsince empty streets relentlessly returning this Victorian
companies poured capital in to the Chilean nitratesrelic to desert.