Grube San Fernando

For almost 85 years, the San Fernando mine led a life of its own on the Florz-Füsseberg vein. It was not until the Siegerland ore mining industry was reorganised after the Second World War and the associated change of ownership that it was reorganised as a joint operation.

In 1855, the miner Wilhelm Hähner, who had worked in South American mines for a long time, acquired the mining rights here and named the mining field ‘San Fernando’ in memory of his former sphere of activity. However, he died a short time later. H.D.F. Schneider, the later founder of Friedrichshütte, took over the mining rights from his heirs in 1856 and subsequently acquired neighbouring mining fields, merging them with San Fernando.

Mining was initially carried out above ground. Around 1860, work began on the construction of the deep tunnel on the valley floor, which was initially used to reach the San Fernando and Ziegenberg veins to the north-east. Later, crosscuts were also driven in an easterly direction. At the beginning of the 1920s, the tunnel had reached a length of around 800 metres.

In the following year, the 440 metre level was reached and new, previously unknown veins were opened up. The previous annual production of 20,000 tonnes was doubled and increased to 70,000 tonnes by 1913. The opencast facilities also had to be adapted to the increasing production volumes.

In 1922/23, new processing and roasting facilities were built at San Fernando. The roasting process led to significant improvements in the metal content. While the iron content of the raw ore was 30-32% and the manganese content around 6%, the weight reduction during roasting increased these to around 50% and 10% respectively. In addition, the reduction in weight by almost a third had a positive effect on the costs of onward transport to the smelters.

This favourable development also led to the construction of a new shaft, which went into operation in September 1928. The winding system of the old Shaft I had reached the final stage of its mechanical capacity at the 600 metre level. An additional blind shaft was set up on this level for the continuation of underground mining, which was sunk to the 930 m level.

Shaft II was constructed from the surface to the final level in a circular shape with a diameter of 4.20 metres. It was lined with 25 cm thick brickwork, which was braced at 5 metre intervals with steel girders, which in turn were secured to the rock with anchors. Thanks to this solid construction, the shaft showed no signs of deformation over the entire period of operation. Shaft II reached a depth of 1002 metres from the surface.

The San Fernando mine attracted the attention of experts due to shifts in the ore veins. Over the course of millions of years, tectonic processes have led to faulting of the rock formations, whereby ore veins were also interrupted and shifted. If the faults were only in the range of a few metres, they usually did not pose a major problem. However, San Fernando had one of the most significant displacements, which was investigated in detail by leading German geologists in 1922/23 and is known among experts as the ‘Malscheid fault’. It runs through the mine field in a south-westerly direction and causes a horizontal displacement of the southern part of the vein by 240 metres.

After 1950, rationalisation of the underground operations began. The aim was to mechanise the work processes and thus to significantly increase extraction volumes. The processing and roasting facilities were also modernised. The exhaust gases produced during roasting affected the landscape for decades; it was only a few years after the roasting furnaces were shut down that trees began to grow again on the neighbouring slopes of the Ziegenberg.

In order to achieve the most efficient operating processes possible, efforts were made to create large operating units. In addition to the interconnected operation with the Wolf mine1) , a connection to the Große Burg mine in Altenseelbach was discussed from San Fernando.

Operations had not been resumed here after the Second World War, but the mine still had large ore reserves. A connecting route was driven along the 600 metre level, bypassing the basalt deposit on the Malscheid. After around 1.5 kilometres, the drive was stopped again in 1960. Changing conditions had led to the planning of a new shaft and conveyor system in Altenseelbach, which now seemed more favourable. However, the ever-increasing crisis in ore mining ultimately prevented these plans from being realised.

With the rationalisation efforts mentioned above, the annual production volume was increased to up to 200,000 tonnes towards the end of the 1950s, but the Siegerland mining industry was also unable to withstand the increasing cost pressure on the world market.

As the ores from abroad were cheaper than the manganese-rich Siegerland ores that had once been in demand, despite the longer transport routes, the smelting works in the Ruhr area continually restricted the purchase of domestic ores, so that domestic mining could no longer cover its costs. On 14 February 1962, the last mining shift at San Fernando was officially completed. A total of 6 million tonnes of raw ore had been extracted in the mine's 100-year history.

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