// Museo // Temporary exhibitions//Year 2023//A workers' town in the Sierra de Cádiz (Spain): the memory thread// A dynamic community in its brief time

A dynamic community in its brief time

A dynamic community in its brief time
1961. Three generations of workers gathered together for a wedding. On the right of the group are Vicente Aycart Benzo (engineer at the Confederación Hidrográfica del Guadalquivir), Francisco Sáinz de la Mora and José Melguizo (engineer assistants), and Ramiro Rozados (work foreman), among other company staff. Town at Los Hurones (Cádiz). Photograph courtesy of Pepita Blanco.
Back to A workers' town in the Sierra de Cádiz (Spain): the memory thread,

A dynamic community in its brief time

Because migration to the dam construction site was a family affair, the workers’ community consisted of all age groups: grandparents and parents, couples and the descendants of those working on the dam. José Melguizo (Madrid, 1935), assistant to the engineer, says that at the height of the construction they hired as many as 660 workers. The total number of workers would be greater if we included those without a contract. Given that many of them lived there with their families, Melguizo estimates that during the most active period there may have been 2,000 people living around the dam building site.

During the 15-20 years the community existed, as the work progressed, new residents arrived and others left. There were many births and also weddings. The different population clusters around the dam were in touch with one another for reasons of work and also to meet certain basic needs (education, health, social relations).

Grandmothers and aunts who lived elsewhere spent time at the dam to help with raising children, and wives and children went to the town to visit their fathers and brothers. Juan Manuel Román García (Ubrique, 1958)’s sister remembers that as a child she sometimes went with her mother, on foot, to visit her father at the dam: «It was a long way. Several families went together, like a pilgrimage, and the adults took turns to look after the kids and to mount us on animals».