Santa Rosalía is a city and municipal seat of Mulegé Municipality, in

Baja California Sur Baja California Sur, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California Sur, is a state in Mexico. It is the 31st and last state to be admitted, in 1974. It is also the second least populated Mexican state and the ninth-largest state by ...

, situated along the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California (), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Vermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja California peninsula from ...

. Located on the east coast of the Baja Peninsula, the town had a population of 14,357 inhabitants in 2020.2020 Comondú Census
/ref> The city was founded as a

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

by the French Compagnie du Boleo in 1884, which established the local copper mines. Today the city is a popular tourist destination.

History

The town was named after Saint Rosalia, although the mission is not located by the town, but is in original location Mulegé, about south. Santa Rosalía boasts French influence, particularly in its architecture. The French Compagnie du Boleo founded the town in 1884 and exploited

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

mines there until they closed in 1954. They built houses and installed the metallic Iglesia de Santa Bárbara. Unlike many other mining sites, the industrial facilities which are located in the very middle of the town, were never dismantled. Of particular interest are the

reverberatory furnace A reverberatory furnace is a metallurgy, metallurgical or process Metallurgical furnace, furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases. The term ''reverberation'' is use ...

and the metallurgical converter, although they are currently not accessible by the public due to safety concerns. Old

locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

s, mining equipment and machinery are visible everywhere, much preserved as ornate. The main mining company building (La dirección) have been reconverted into the city hall and its offices into an industrial museum.

El Boleo copper mines

The Boleo Mine is an unusual sediment-hosted copper-

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

-manganese ore deposit. Seven large

manto ore deposit A polymetallic replacement deposit, also known as carbonate replacement deposit or high-temperature carbonate-hosted Ag-Pb-Zn deposit,Megaw, P.K.M., Ruiz, J., and Titley, S.R., 1988, High-Temperature, Carbonate-Hosted Ag-Pb-Zn(Cu) Deposits of Nor ...

s have been identified. El Boleo was mined by Compagnie du Boleo, a French company, from 1885 until 1954. To prevent the economic collapse of Santa Rosalia and surrounding communities, a Mexican state-owned company (CMSRSA) assumed control and reopened the works using basically the same (rather archaic) equipment and process used by the French. The government funded operation was never profitable, and the mine was finally closed in the 1980s, when lower-grade ore and old technology made continued operation impractical.

Modern mining efforts

Baja Mining, a Canadian firm, began intermittent exploration of the El Boleo mine and subsequently undertook an effort to reopen El Boleo. Baja Mining estimated that the property contains a resource of 534 million tons of ore, containing 0.59% Cu, 0.051% Co, and 0.63% Zn. Baja also hoped to produce byproduct

manganese Manganese is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese was first isolated in the 1770s. It is a transition m ...

. Baja Mining, in partnership with a Korean Consortium began developing the $1.6 Billion project in 2010. In 2012 however, construction cost overruns reported by Baja Mining threatened to halt or delay construction of the project. Majority ownership interest and control of the project was transferred to the Korean consortium, in return for funding the reported cost overruns. On January 26, 2015 Minera y Metalurgica del Boleo obtained its first copper production from the process of crushing, leaching, extracting and electrowinning in its mine-metallurgic project "El Boleo".

Geography

Santa Rosalía is a port city, and a regular ferry connects with

Guaymas Guaymas () is a city in Guaymas Municipality, in the southwest part of the List of states of Mexico, state of Sonora, in northwestern Mexico. The city is south of the state capital of Hermosillo, and from the Mexico – United States border, U.S. ...

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, on the other side of the

. At the Palo Verde Airport daily flights are available from Guaymas and twice a week from

Hermosillo Hermosillo (), formerly called Pitic (as in ''Santísima Trinidad del Pitic'' and ''Presidio del Pitic''), is a city in the center of the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the municipal seat of the Hermosillo municipality, the state's ...

. It is located along

Mexican Federal Highway 1 Federal Highway 1 (, Fed. 1) is a toll-free (libre) part of the federal highway corridors () of Mexico, and the highway follows the length of the Baja California Peninsula from Tijuana, Baja California, in the north to Cabo San Lucas, Ba ...

Climate

Due to its location in the warm Gulf waters, which are considerably warmer than Pacific waters in the winter, the town is the northernmost (and thus closest to the US border) year-round warm locale on the main peninsular highway. Nevertheless, it's not much of a tourist town and sees few snowbirds.

Demographics

The 2020 census showed a population of 14,357 persons. The population was 10,190 in 1990.

References

External links

2010 census tables: INEGI
Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografia e Informática {{DEFAULTSORT:Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur Populated places in Baja California Sur Mining communities in Mexico Mulegé Municipality Populated coastal places in Mexico Port cities and towns on the Mexican Pacific coast Municipality seats in Baja California Sur French diaspora in Mexico