See inside Chile's ghost town where 'white gold' drew thousands of miners in the early 19th century

Jenny McGrath

2025-01-13T17:00:56Z

Rust-covered buildings with a desert-scape in the background — Humberstone was abandoned in the 1960s but once held a thriving community. Holger Leue/Getty Images

The Atacama Desert in northern Chile holds two ghost towns called Humberstone and Santa Laura.
Once home to thousands, they were abandoned in the 1960s when the saltpeter industry collapsed.
Today, the towns are World Heritage Sites that attract visitors to learn more about the region.

Once a thriving community, Humberstone in northern Chile is now a ghost town.

Beginning in the late 1860s, hundreds of people lived and worked in Humberstone and nearby Santa Laura. Located in the Atacama Desert, it was a production hub for saltpeter, a substance used in gunpowder and fertilizer known as "white gold." After World War I, the industry began to crumble and the towns were abandoned in the 1960s.

For decades, it sat empty except for buildings, equipment, and other remnants of its industrial past.

Now it has a second life as a tourist attraction. Photos show how the well-preserved towns — now World Heritage Sites — bring the past to life, though the region's harsh conditions threaten its future.

The region's geology made it perfect for saltpeter or "white gold."

A rust-covered metal fence in front of desert sand and mounds of sand in the background — The back of Humberstone's nitrate town facing the hyperarid desert. Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

Chile's Tarapacá region sits near the borders with Bolivia and Peru. The region's hyperarid Atacama Desert has been compared to Mars.

The desert soil contains a mix of chemicals carried by groundwater, ocean spray, or fog. A lack of rainfall helped preserve beds of sodium nitrate, or saltpeter.

In the early 19th century, Europeans on the hunt for saltpeter to use in gunpowder turned their attention to the desert.

When Charles Darwin visited the area in 1835, he wasn't impressed with its saltpeter production.

A timeline reading 1835 Charled Robert Darwin visita las saliteras de La Noria and other historical events — Charles Darwin visited Chile's saltpeter works in 1835. Santi Visalli/Getty Images

Companies were mining saltpeter in the region by the early 1800s. When Charles Darwin visited during his voyage on the HMS Beagle in 1835, he dismissed the Chilean version of saltpeter.

"This saltpetre does not properly deserve to be so called; for it consists of nitrate of soda, and not of potash, and is therefore of much less value," he wrote.

The desert's sodium nitrate was more prone to dampness and burned at a higher temperature than potassium nitrate, another type of saltpeter commonly used in gunpowder, John Darlington wrote in "Amongst the Ruins: Why Civilizations Collapse and Communities Disappear."

New technological advances in the mid-1800s transformed the saltpeter process.

Rusted metal tanks with numbers on them in a structure with rusted walls — Tanks that were used as part of the saltpeter production process. Michael Runkel/robertharding/Getty Images

Extracting nitrate and valuable byproducts like iodine quickly became industrialized. It required a slew of machinery, including hoppers, leaching tanks, and troughs.

As populations grew and scientific development continued, researchers turned to sodium nitrate not as a source of gunpowder but as a useful fertilizer.

By 1870, the Tarapacá region was producing 500,000 tons of saltpeter, the largest source of the substances in the world at the time, the BBC reported.

The saltpeter works at Humberstone and Santa Laura quickly adopted the new technology.

A man holds a black-and-white photo of an industrial building with the remnants of the building, now rusted and missing pieces, behind him — Juan Tapia holds a photograph of the former Santa Laura nitrate processing plant in 2005. Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

The Peruvian Nitrate Company founded La Palma in 1862, and nearby Santa Laura followed 10 years later. La Palma was later renamed Humberstone, after a British chemical engineer, James Humberstone, who moved to the area in the 1870s.

Many European investors set up operations in the Tarapacá region, trading a share of their profits to acquire the land.

Towns soon sprang up in the arid desert.

An aerial view of several houses built in a grid with rusting roofs — An aerial view of the Humberstone in 2023. Lucas Aguayo Araos/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

One of the driest places on earth, some parts of the Atacama Desert receive only 0.2 inches of rainfall a year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While the average temperature is in the high 60s Fahrenheit, it can drop to close to freezing at night in the winter.

Humberstone is arranged in a 10-by-6-block grid. Many buildings were made of Douglas fir with zinc roofs. Verandas and covered walkways provided relief from the sun.

Amenities, including a swimming pool, church, and theater, were added as Humberstone grew.

The inside of a church with green walls and wooden pews and Jesus on a cross in front — The parish church in Humberstone, Chile. Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A general store and hotel were built at the center of Humberstone on the plaza. A tennis court, theater, swimming pool, chapel, hospital, and school all made up the complex.

Some of the materials for the buildings were shipped in, but workers also used remnants of the saltpeter process for "Pampa cement."

At its height, 3,500 people lived in Humberstone.

A child's dilapadated bedroom with yellow furniture, including a bed and dresser, plus a chair and trunk and doll on a rocking horse — A plant manager's house in Humberstone, Chile. Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The workers came from Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. Barracks were constructed of dorm-like rooms for single workers. There were also small houses for families.

Managers lived in larger, nicer homes, while owners usually had homes in coastal cities instead of near the mines.

Workers faced difficult, dangerous conditions.

A mannequin holds a blunt hammer surrounded by rocks and a cart holding more rocks — A mannequin depicts working conditions in Humberstone, Chile. Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images

Workers were lured to Humberstone and other mining towns by companies promising to pay their travel costs. "But what they found was really harsh conditions, very rough work, very dangerous work, and very poor pay," Ángela Vergara, a professor of history at California State University, Los Angeles, told Business Insider.

Administrators would also physically punish the workers.

One reporter who visited in the 1880s described the work as incessant, comparing it to the dirty, dangerous work of coal mines. He called houses "squalid-looking," per the BBC.

The town operated on a token system that made it difficult for workers to leave.

Mannequins sit behind a wooden teller's window and office in a general store — The teller's window and manager's office in Humberstone's general store. Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Rather than being paid in money, workers were paid in tokens that were only accepted in the town's general store.

"That was to trap people," Vergara said. "They could not move because they were dependent on the token."

Saltpeter workers in Humberstone and other towns became an important part of the country's labor movement.

A railroad connected Humberstone, and its saltpeter, to the rest of the world.

Two mannequins on and near an old-fashioned locomotive inside a museum — A steam engine with mannequins on display in Humberstone, Chile. Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

By the end of the 19th century, nitrate railways connected the region's mines to port cities so saltpeter could be shipped all over the world. At the same time, the miners were dependent on the railroads, too.

"All these nitrate camps and towns, they were located in very isolated parts of the Atacama," Vergara said. They had to bring in food and supplies to survive, she said.

Saltpeter made Chile rich.

A piano and wooden kitchen table with chairs in a home from the late 19th or early 20th century — The Humberstone doctor's house. Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Port cities shipped saltpeter to Europe and other parts of the world and imported goods, including textiles and coal.

Between 1880 and 1930, "Chile literally lived off one product: saltpetre," historian Julio Pinto told BBC News in 2015.

It brought in about half of the country's fiscal revenue, he said.

Disputes over saltpeter had long-lasting consequences for the region's borders.

A black-and-white engraving of people putting out a building that's on fire next to another building reading "bains poly..." — An engraving of the Port of Arica during the War of the Pacific. PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Chile went to war with Bolivia and Peru over nitrate taxes in 1879, eventually annexing nitrate-laden territories from both countries, including Tarapacá.

Bolivia was cut off from the coast, becoming the land-locked country it still is today.

After World War I, Chile's saltpeter industry collapsed.

A wooden building with a clock on it, some desert vegetation and a lamp post nearby — A building in Humberstone, Chile. Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images

Germany relied upon Chile's saltpeter for fertilizer until the British blockade during the war. Instead, German scientists found ways to synthesize nitrate from ammonia, bypassing the need for saltpeter.

The loss of the industry combined with the Great Depression had a severe effect on Chile's economy. While it had once produced 80% of the world's nitrate, by 1950 it was only responsible for 15%.

By 1960, the saltpeter works at Humberstone and Santa Clara had closed.

A large metal rectangle with a wooden diving — The swimming pool in Humberstone, Chile. Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A private company bought the operations and then sold off pieces of them in 1961. Workers left to find other jobs, leaving ghost towns behind.

The saltpeter works became Historic Monuments in 1970, saving them from demolition. In the 1990s, former workers and their families formed the Saltpeter Museum Corporation and won the rights to the sites during a public auction in 2002.

Humberstone and Santa Laura became a World Heritage site in 2005.

A mannequin of a woman sitting at an old-fashioned sewing machine. — A mannequin at Humberstone, Chile's butchering shop. Lucas Aguayo Araos/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Saltpeter Museum Corporation and former residents gathered 20,000 signatures to have UNESCO recognize the historical significance of the sites.

The pampinos, the area's inhabitants, had a unique culture influenced by the mix of people from all over the world. The towns and the industry represented specialized knowledge that impacted the landscape and deeply affected the country's economy.

Together, the two towns showcase different aspects of the region's former saltpeter industry. Santa Laura's equipment and manufacturing structures are better preserved than Humberstone's, which still has many residential buildings and other remnants of social and cultural life.

Years of neglect took a toll on the towns.

Rusted vats in front of a wooden building with sand around — Vats and a steam boiler at Humberstone, Chile. Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Between the 1960s and early 2000s, there was little maintenance on the towns' buildings. Looters took reusable materials, and the elements damaged the fragile structures, which weren't built for long-term use.

Salty fog had corroded the metal, and wind and earthquakes were threatening the wooden and stucco structures.

The Ministry of Public Works, the Saltpeter Museum Corporation, and the National Council of Monuments started working on securing and conserving the sites in 2005. In 2019, UNESCO removed them from its List of World Heritage in Danger due to their efforts. Some buildings are still fragile, though.

Now the saltpeter works and town are a tourist destination.

A tourist holding a large hat looks at a mannequin in front of a display of canned goods behind a counter — Visitors can see what the general store looked like in Humberstone, Chile. Santi Visalli/Getty Images

Many buildings, including the school and general store, remain. Visitors can wander around Humberstone and Santa Laura, which are only about half a mile from each other.

Mannequins depict what it would have been like to live and work in the towns.

Sources for this story include "Amongst the Ruins: Why Civilizations Collapse and Communities Disappear," UNESCO World Heritage Convention, "Tangible and Intangible Heritage in the Age of Globalisation," Applied Geochemistry, Chemical and Engineering News, Astrobiology, The Hispanic American Historical Review, and BBC News.