Aosta · Italy

The steelworks

Aosta is not only a Roman city: for most of the twentieth century it was a city of steel. The plant was founded during the First World War to work iron mined at Cogne, 25 kilometres further up the valley, at 2,400 metres. The ore descended first by cableway and then by an electric railway that crossed the mountain inside a very long tunnel. For much of the route the train ran in darkness, within the rock, and emerged only close to the city. Within a single generation the population changed composition: workers arrived from the Veneto and later from the south, housing was built to receive them, and a valley of farmers and mountain guides found itself living to the rhythm of factory sirens. The mines have closed. The steelworks has not: it still produces special steels, a few hundred metres from the Roman theatre.

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Where were the mines?

At Colonna above Cogne, between two thousand and two and a half thousand metres: among the highest iron mines in Europe. Work went on up there all year, with the miners housed on site. They closed in the 1970s and part of the workings can be visited today.

What did it change for the city?

Almost everything. The population grew quickly, whole districts were built, and for decades a job at the plant was the alternative to seasonal work in the mountains. It also changed the languages you heard in the street.

Is there anything to see?

The plant is working and not open to visitors, but you walk along it heading east, and the sheer extent of the sheds says on its own how much it mattered. The workers’ district remains, and so do the mine workings further up the valley.

Where it is

Via / Rue Carrel, 11100 Aosta · 45.7349, 7.33298 · Open in Maps

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