Santa Barbara Mine Ruins

In 1555, after the discovery of the cold amalgamation process for refining gold and silver, the Spanish Crown needed mercury, and found it in what would later become the Peruvian region of Huancavelica. Over the next three centuries, they extracted it relentlessly, using the forced labor of Indigenous workers. Mercury poisoning, cave-ins, and brutal conditions soon earned the site its grim name: Mina de la Muerte, the Mine of Death.

From Huancavelica, the mercury was carried by llama to the coast, shipped to Arica in modern-day Chile, and then hauled by mule across the Atacama Desert to feed the great silver mines of Potosí and Oruro in Bolivia. This new refining method allowed the Spanish to reclaim previously discarded ore, expanding their empire’s wealth at a staggering human cost.

After Peru’s independence in the 1800s, the mine was left to informal miners. When the California gold rush began, production dwindled. The Mining Act of 1899 briefly revived operations under private investors who brought in foreign machinery, built a cable car, and even constructed a hydroelectric plant. But when mercury prices collapsed in 1975, the site was finally abandoned for good- ending over four centuries of extraction and leaving the haunting ruins that remain today.