At the present time, Sewell is an ex- camping, that subsists as an industrial area of the Division The Lieutenant (El Teniente), lodging a mineral Concentrator, its administrative offices and, of course, the beautiful civic, to live in buildings and of services that turn to Sewell a "typical and colorful zone". This because the spectacular ex camping Sewell, with the auspice of Corporation of Copper (Codelco Chile), has been declared National Monument in the category Typical and Colorful Zone of the Sixth Region and postulates to being recognized by UNESCO as Patrimony of the Humanity.

Throughout its existence, Sewell has received names such as "the city of the stairs" or "city spilled in the hill", by its layout seated in mountainous land.

Sewell is located to 34 degrees 08' South latitude and the degrees 15' of west longitude, to 39,7 miles of the city of Rancagua by the highway Cupper (Carretera del Cobre), in Chile. From a mountain range point of view, it is located in the slope of the black Hill, in the pre mountain range of The Andes (Los Andes) (7.217 feet on the level of the Sea), to the northwest.

History

April 29 of 1905, a decree of the Ministry of Property authorized the installation in Chile of the North American company Braden Copper Company, to be in charge to operate the deposit The Lieutenant (El Teniente), that remained left since the end of century XIX.

In that scene, Braden Copper undertook a planned work set, beginning to construct a way of carts - and soon a train as a transportation tool -; to qualify a commercial office in Barns (Graneros) and warehouses in The Company (La Compañía); to reopen the extraction of the Mine; to build a concentrator and rooms for campings; to establish an industrial park (patio) in Rancagua, and to contract workers, among others.

In addition to some small campings created near primitive veins to explode, between 1905 and 1906, in the slope of the mountain next to the Mine, a “beneficiary establishment of minerals” was constructed, integrated by a plant of concentration or mill, with capacity to deal with 250 tons of mineral daily that were carried by a "aerial street car" from the deposit, and a "dynamo" that provided the electrical energy.

Nevertheless, only in March of 1915 this industrial town received the name of "Sewell", in memory of Barton Sewell, top executive of Braden Copper that passed away that year in New York. He never came to Chile, but he always supported the idea of William Braden to invest in The Lieutenant (El Teniente).

With the years, the camping and its facilities progressed as increased the production of copper, happening to constitute a city. More than a territorial expansion, the urban structure of Sewell characterized by the density and growth in height, with buildings that were not exempts of accidents and destructions by the climatic and topographic conditions of the place.

Present state

At the present time, Sewell is a work area where still remains in operations the Concentrator of the same name and few industrial facilities, and to which is acceded in vehicle by a section of the Highway The Copper (La Carretera El Cobre). In the camping still remain about 50 original buildings, which are being recovered to welcome the visit of the public. In the meantime, in December of 2002 the first stage of the Museum of the Great Mining of Copper (El Museo de la gran Minería del Cobre) was inaugurated.

Architecture

It is possible to emphasize, within the set of simple and homogenous buildings, some constructions that excel by their volumetry, color, location, facade and architectonic language, constituting itself in referential landmarks within the ex- camping.

An example is the old hospital, with a complex plant and an outstanding volume by its color and ceiling, in which they excel the small windows of the attic. Another example, with a language near the modern architecture, is the Industrial School (Escuela Industrial), with three levels plus a floor socle and a singular curved and staggered facade, undressed of ornament. Also, the neoclassic atmosphere of the Lieutenant Social Club, in the American District. Within the to live in constructions, it emphasizes the signed building of collective houses with number 152, only construction that is located against the slope of the hill, with nine stepped plants that print an interesting volumetric presence to it.

Between the industrial constructions, a special mention deserves the structure of Rail End (Punta de Rieles), located in the highest point of the camping, to 8.20 feet on the level of the sea, that is shown on the emptiness. In the South slope of the Black Hill (Cerro Negro) is the enormous ship of the Concentrator, with its covers to a water, unfolding in the slope. Finally, the Rebolledo Bridge (Puente Rebolledo) destined to the passage of the canoe of relaves.

The diverse types of houses were organized in relatively homogenous groups, from certain slight knowledge of formal affinity and space proximity. The different typologies from houses are arranged to the way of small districts, also from proximity and formal affinity, remembering some corners of the old port of Valparaiso. The American District, with around 50 unit familiars houses of one and two floors, watching at the Coya river (Rio Coya) and next to the Lieutenant Club (Teniente Club); the mentioned Sorensen population; the heterogeneous "central district", with hundreds of houses and numerous equipment on both sides of the stairs; the area below the level of the station, secreted by the iron routes; the sector of the denominated building "the doves" (“Las Palomeras”), over Rail End (Punta de Rieles), etc.

The architectonic expression is very fit to the constructive process and the structural solution of the wood system "Balloon Frame" provides the support to metal plate covers waved and stucco parameters on mesh or irons metallic, arranged directly on the structure. On it, an ample range of colors that provides the diversity and the enchantment of the popular architecture.

According to a structural study, which is of Sewell is very well conserved, and it only displays precise problems that do not affect the stability of the buildings.

Urban structure

The architectonic image of Sewell, as a mining establishment, is determined by a particular urban structure able to adapt to the topography of the Black Hill (Cerro Negro), is located in the Mountain range of The Andes (Los Andes), and, on the other hand, to a set of buildings that respond to the climate of high mountain and to the operative requirements of a mining task singularly.

Sewell, is well called the "city of the stairs", since its urban structure is defined basically by the great Central Stairs (Escalera Central), spine that crosses all the camping and that constitutes, simultaneously, the public space in which small squares are opened to their step. From the stairs, numerous secondary pedestrians circulations, generally horizontal, were arranged in form of "bone of fish", allowing to the access and the relation between the different types of buildings, including the areas of equipment and industrial facilities.

On the other hand, the motorized vehicles have access to the edges of this pedestrian system using the track of the ex- railroad and the access roads to the middle and superior part of the camping, without interfering with the pedestrian circulation.

This urban structure allows a route in that a constant dialectic between the mountain range natural landscape and constructed landscape occurs, that a great variety of perspective generates additionally, those that allow discovering of surprising way the wealth of the spaces resulting public between the pedestrian circulations and buildings.

More important, the exteriors spaces of public use are the pedestrians circulations, the small backwaters or adjacent bends to them and some squares associated to old significant buildings, such as the theater, the Morgan Park (Plaza Morgan) (in front of the Industrial School (Escuela Industrial) and on the station of the railroad) and the Square of the Miner (Plazuela del Minero), in the base of the end of railway Rail End (Punta de Rieles), where every year were remembered the protagonists of the effort tasks that gave origin to Sewell. To the indicated elements the runners and accesses roofs of the buildings add themselves, those that are complementary intermediate spaces to already mentioned ones.

In the same way, the location of the buildings adapts to the natural slope, taking advantage of the contours, and they are located separately in form of "bone of fish" with respect to the central stairs, without conforming groupings planned in terms of a geometric rigor, far from assimilable units to a square.

Sewell Cradle of the Great Mining: Patrimonial value

At the beginning of century XX, the arrival of North American capitals started up, by means of an industrial infrastructure and technological advances, deposits of low copper law that lay left and underestimated by uneconomical, which began to produce on great scale and with international reach. All it thanks to a visionary man, but little known: William Braden.

Braden had graduated as Engineer of Mines in the University of Boston (Massachusetts) and had prestige as professional of the matter. Thus, by order of the company American Smelting and Refining, as of 1900 looked for mining projects in Latin America, encouraging the investment of American companies that settled in great copper deposits of Chile: Braden Copper Company, in The Lieutenant (El Teniente) (1905), Chile Exploration Company, in Chuquicamata (1913) and Andes Copper Mining Company, in Potrerillos (1920). With it, it was transformed into the "father" of the Great Mining of copper.

Braden also started the fatherly model that was common to such companies, as he saw in the miner a poor and abandoned individual that had to be attended and to be protected. Interested in evaluating other veins personally, Braden explored part of our country, always supported by collaborators who accompanied him from the organization of The Lieutenant (El Teniente). In fact, the acquired experience and the equipment proved in that mineral, helped to give form and to start up the operations of Chuquicamata and Potrerillos, whose capitalists intimately were bound to each other.

Braden was a tenacious and generous entrepreneur, who worked elbow to elbow with his men and he fell in love with this country, as he were another Chilean. By his vast contribution, in 1919 the Government of Chile decorated him with the Great Cross of the Order to the Merit (la Gran Cruz del Orden al Mérito). William Braden and The Lieutenant (El Teniente) impelled an important Chilean chapter of economic, mining, enterprise history and social of century XX, in a trajectory that made reality the old English saying: "the man indicated in the correct place".

Condition of Monuments

The confrontation of the urban-architectonic and conceptual images of Sewell, already determined with the preceding axiological categories, allows to diagnose the relation between the functional and aesthetic values of the camping and the patrimonial values.

Regarding with the originality, Sewell is one of the most original places of Chile and America. So far, it is the only permanent mountain city-camping that exists in Chile, country that paradoxically is limited east and the west by mountain ranges of considerable spread, which do not count on inhabitants.

Surpassing this lack of previous experience, the precarious initial camping was able to rise high until being one of the most attractive establishments of the world, and its Mine produced with costs that are counted between the lowest, in spite of the constant loss of law of minerals. Nevertheless, the quality of life or habitability in the city was very high, measured by the degree of satisfaction of its inhabitants and other indicators.

There are two aspects, frequently mentioned, that are necessary to clarify: the property of the ground by its occupants would not seem an important limitation to its cultural development. Who formulate this critic forgets that in no pre-Columbian American culture was known the deprived property of the land.

The second aspect is that desire to live in Sewell had not just purely economic reasons. In effect, in the "city of the stairs", unlike other places, there were not markets with privileged prices, but, on the contrary, their prices were something more expensive than those of Rancagua. From the beginning, for good or for bad, the market with cards was avoided as a tool of interchange and the commerce was in privat hands, with a discreet control of maximum prices.

The position of the camping in the land is original, as it is not frequent in America to find operations in a so steep mountain range. Although The Andes (Los Andes) crosses the continent from end to end, is in this place that takes place greater slopes, those than are going to take to the camping to be placed astride in the mountain, marking the summit with stairs that are going to be as a vertebra and to give it the name: the "city of the stairs".

Considering these antecedents, the degree of originality of the city is very high, national as much as within the international framework, and it does not recognize previous model nor explicit references.

As far as the singularity of Sewell, it can be affirmed that there is in the world no another equal or similar place.

To begin with, it is difficult that a city-camping does not have a high degree of unity, for reasons of geographic location, economy of base, materiality of its constructions, etc. Nevertheless, in the case of industrial cities, these variables usually take similar values by extreme exigencies of the environment, as in the case of the old saltpeter offices - some of which they are national monuments that constitute a typology of industrial establishment.

The case of Sewell is different, because it is a precise situation, with a gestation that was an answer to an unknown problem in history of the Chilean mining that in the matter of copper and saltpeter took root of preference in warm territories of the north of the country.

And more, it is difficult that in a future, human establishment can be generated similar to Sewell, since the new mines that enter operation do not give origin to the camping sense, where the family, the house and the work were confused in a whole. On the other hand, the laws and decrees on architecture and urbanism in use would make another Sewell impossible, as certainly also another Valparaiso, the one of hills.

The Representativeness of Sewell derives from his process of genesis and development that constitutes an epic that combined boldness, effort and tragedy, in a scale never seen before in this type of companies.

Usually one thinks from the "world developed" - with too much frequency - that the extraction and benefit of raw materials is a simple and also as a simple act of harvesting, when the reality shows it to us as an arduous and laborious task that has as scene ardent desert, humid and rarefied tunnels in the Earth entrails, the deoxidized atmosphere of the mountain or vastness without scale of the oceans.

The history of this city-camping is transferred by painful experiences, that touch so much the intimate tragedy as the social one: the system of "test and error", with which its urban plane was developed, cost many lives, taken care of the inexperience of its pioneers with the behavior of the high mountain range, every time they were foreign of prairie and Chileans of countryside.

Sewell is located 37,2 miles of Rancagua and 6,988 feet of altitude in the middle of an imposing mountain range landscape. The operation of the mineral was founded by William Braden in 1905 as part of the operation plan of The Lieutenant mineral (Mineral El Teniente) and baptized in honor to Barton Sewell, first president of the company Braden Copper Co. In its beginnings was a primitive establishment, with some cabins and collective enclosures, constructed by the workers with zinc plates and walls of pircas.

In the decade of 1960 Sewell it got to lodge more than 16,000 inhabitants and one complete infrastructure of services, such as hospital, school, court, mail, theater, casino, swimming pool, and skating field, among others. In 1969 the gradual uninhabited began towards Rancagua.

Sewell conserves many of the industrial facilities and the characteristic buildings today, which have been recovered carefully, showing alive colors. The in to live blocks - or group-of simple design, constructed in wood, they get to have up to 5 floors. The oldest ones are in the superior part and the inferior North zone. The original architecture and disposition of the complex are determined by the climate - cold and snow in winter and by its location in a promontory of the mountain, in the heat of mountain range: the rooms in the North slope taking advantage of the sun, and the industrial part, to the south.

In many parts the stairs have replaced the streets, that’s why Sewell is well-known also as the City of the Stairs (Ciudad de las Escaleras), the main one of them and axis of the camping, crosses all the city and from her pedestrians footpaths comes off following the levels of the hill. At one side of the great stairs is the O’Higgins Park (Plaza O’Higgins that was the main point of social reunion. Next to the Arsenal of Trains (Maestranza de Trenes) and the ex- Industrial School (Escuela Industrial) was turned in the Museum of the Great Mining of Copper (Museo de la gran Minería del Cobre), with a sample of the history of the camping and the mining of copper in general. The access to the camping is only authorized in organized tours.

Throughout its existence, Sewell has received names such as "the city of the stairs" or "city spilled in the hill", by its layout seated in mountainous land.

Sewell is located to 34 degrees 08' South latitude and the degrees 15' of west longitude, to 39,7 miles of the city of Rancagua by the highway Cupper (Carretera del Cobre), in Chile. From a mountain range point of view, it is located in the slope of the black Hill, in the pre mountain range of The Andes (Los Andes) (7.217 feet on the level of the Sea), to the northwest.

History

April 29 of 1905, a decree of the Ministry of Property authorized the installation in Chile of the North American company Braden Copper Company, to be in charge to operate the deposit The Lieutenant (El Teniente), that remained left since the end of century XIX.

In that scene, Braden Copper undertook a planned work set, beginning to construct a way of carts - and soon a train as a transportation tool -; to qualify a commercial office in Barns (Graneros) and warehouses in The Company (La Compañía); to reopen the extraction of the Mine; to build a concentrator and rooms for campings; to establish an industrial park (patio) in Rancagua, and to contract workers, among others.

In addition to some small campings created near primitive veins to explode, between 1905 and 1906, in the slope of the mountain next to the Mine, a “beneficiary establishment of minerals” was constructed, integrated by a plant of concentration or mill, with capacity to deal with 250 tons of mineral daily that were carried by a "aerial street car" from the deposit, and a "dynamo" that provided the electrical energy.

Nevertheless, only in March of 1915 this industrial town received the name of "Sewell", in memory of Barton Sewell, top executive of Braden Copper that passed away that year in New York. He never came to Chile, but he always supported the idea of William Braden to invest in The Lieutenant (El Teniente).

With the years, the camping and its facilities progressed as increased the production of copper, happening to constitute a city. More than a territorial expansion, the urban structure of Sewell characterized by the density and growth in height, with buildings that were not exempts of accidents and destructions by the climatic and topographic conditions of the place.

Present state

At the present time, Sewell is a work area where still remains in operations the Concentrator of the same name and few industrial facilities, and to which is acceded in vehicle by a section of the Highway The Copper (La Carretera El Cobre). In the camping still remain about 50 original buildings, which are being recovered to welcome the visit of the public. In the meantime, in December of 2002 the first stage of the Museum of the Great Mining of Copper (El Museo de la gran Minería del Cobre) was inaugurated.

Architecture

It is possible to emphasize, within the set of simple and homogenous buildings, some constructions that excel by their volumetry, color, location, facade and architectonic language, constituting itself in referential landmarks within the ex- camping.

An example is the old hospital, with a complex plant and an outstanding volume by its color and ceiling, in which they excel the small windows of the attic. Another example, with a language near the modern architecture, is the Industrial School (Escuela Industrial), with three levels plus a floor socle and a singular curved and staggered facade, undressed of ornament. Also, the neoclassic atmosphere of the Lieutenant Social Club, in the American District. Within the to live in constructions, it emphasizes the signed building of collective houses with number 152, only construction that is located against the slope of the hill, with nine stepped plants that print an interesting volumetric presence to it.

Between the industrial constructions, a special mention deserves the structure of Rail End (Punta de Rieles), located in the highest point of the camping, to 8.20 feet on the level of the sea, that is shown on the emptiness. In the South slope of the Black Hill (Cerro Negro) is the enormous ship of the Concentrator, with its covers to a water, unfolding in the slope. Finally, the Rebolledo Bridge (Puente Rebolledo) destined to the passage of the canoe of relaves.

The diverse types of houses were organized in relatively homogenous groups, from certain slight knowledge of formal affinity and space proximity. The different typologies from houses are arranged to the way of small districts, also from proximity and formal affinity, remembering some corners of the old port of Valparaiso. The American District, with around 50 unit familiars houses of one and two floors, watching at the Coya river (Rio Coya) and next to the Lieutenant Club (Teniente Club); the mentioned Sorensen population; the heterogeneous "central district", with hundreds of houses and numerous equipment on both sides of the stairs; the area below the level of the station, secreted by the iron routes; the sector of the denominated building "the doves" (“Las Palomeras”), over Rail End (Punta de Rieles), etc.

The architectonic expression is very fit to the constructive process and the structural solution of the wood system "Balloon Frame" provides the support to metal plate covers waved and stucco parameters on mesh or irons metallic, arranged directly on the structure. On it, an ample range of colors that provides the diversity and the enchantment of the popular architecture.

According to a structural study, which is of Sewell is very well conserved, and it only displays precise problems that do not affect the stability of the buildings.

Urban structure

The architectonic image of Sewell, as a mining establishment, is determined by a particular urban structure able to adapt to the topography of the Black Hill (Cerro Negro), is located in the Mountain range of The Andes (Los Andes), and, on the other hand, to a set of buildings that respond to the climate of high mountain and to the operative requirements of a mining task singularly.

Sewell, is well called the "city of the stairs", since its urban structure is defined basically by the great Central Stairs (Escalera Central), spine that crosses all the camping and that constitutes, simultaneously, the public space in which small squares are opened to their step. From the stairs, numerous secondary pedestrians circulations, generally horizontal, were arranged in form of "bone of fish", allowing to the access and the relation between the different types of buildings, including the areas of equipment and industrial facilities.

On the other hand, the motorized vehicles have access to the edges of this pedestrian system using the track of the ex- railroad and the access roads to the middle and superior part of the camping, without interfering with the pedestrian circulation.

This urban structure allows a route in that a constant dialectic between the mountain range natural landscape and constructed landscape occurs, that a great variety of perspective generates additionally, those that allow discovering of surprising way the wealth of the spaces resulting public between the pedestrian circulations and buildings.

More important, the exteriors spaces of public use are the pedestrians circulations, the small backwaters or adjacent bends to them and some squares associated to old significant buildings, such as the theater, the Morgan Park (Plaza Morgan) (in front of the Industrial School (Escuela Industrial) and on the station of the railroad) and the Square of the Miner (Plazuela del Minero), in the base of the end of railway Rail End (Punta de Rieles), where every year were remembered the protagonists of the effort tasks that gave origin to Sewell. To the indicated elements the runners and accesses roofs of the buildings add themselves, those that are complementary intermediate spaces to already mentioned ones.

In the same way, the location of the buildings adapts to the natural slope, taking advantage of the contours, and they are located separately in form of "bone of fish" with respect to the central stairs, without conforming groupings planned in terms of a geometric rigor, far from assimilable units to a square.

Sewell Cradle of the Great Mining: Patrimonial value

At the beginning of century XX, the arrival of North American capitals started up, by means of an industrial infrastructure and technological advances, deposits of low copper law that lay left and underestimated by uneconomical, which began to produce on great scale and with international reach. All it thanks to a visionary man, but little known: William Braden.

Braden had graduated as Engineer of Mines in the University of Boston (Massachusetts) and had prestige as professional of the matter. Thus, by order of the company American Smelting and Refining, as of 1900 looked for mining projects in Latin America, encouraging the investment of American companies that settled in great copper deposits of Chile: Braden Copper Company, in The Lieutenant (El Teniente) (1905), Chile Exploration Company, in Chuquicamata (1913) and Andes Copper Mining Company, in Potrerillos (1920). With it, it was transformed into the "father" of the Great Mining of copper.

Braden also started the fatherly model that was common to such companies, as he saw in the miner a poor and abandoned individual that had to be attended and to be protected. Interested in evaluating other veins personally, Braden explored part of our country, always supported by collaborators who accompanied him from the organization of The Lieutenant (El Teniente). In fact, the acquired experience and the equipment proved in that mineral, helped to give form and to start up the operations of Chuquicamata and Potrerillos, whose capitalists intimately were bound to each other.

Braden was a tenacious and generous entrepreneur, who worked elbow to elbow with his men and he fell in love with this country, as he were another Chilean. By his vast contribution, in 1919 the Government of Chile decorated him with the Great Cross of the Order to the Merit (la Gran Cruz del Orden al Mérito). William Braden and The Lieutenant (El Teniente) impelled an important Chilean chapter of economic, mining, enterprise history and social of century XX, in a trajectory that made reality the old English saying: "the man indicated in the correct place".

Condition of Monuments

The confrontation of the urban-architectonic and conceptual images of Sewell, already determined with the preceding axiological categories, allows to diagnose the relation between the functional and aesthetic values of the camping and the patrimonial values.

Regarding with the originality, Sewell is one of the most original places of Chile and America. So far, it is the only permanent mountain city-camping that exists in Chile, country that paradoxically is limited east and the west by mountain ranges of considerable spread, which do not count on inhabitants.

Surpassing this lack of previous experience, the precarious initial camping was able to rise high until being one of the most attractive establishments of the world, and its Mine produced with costs that are counted between the lowest, in spite of the constant loss of law of minerals. Nevertheless, the quality of life or habitability in the city was very high, measured by the degree of satisfaction of its inhabitants and other indicators.

There are two aspects, frequently mentioned, that are necessary to clarify: the property of the ground by its occupants would not seem an important limitation to its cultural development. Who formulate this critic forgets that in no pre-Columbian American culture was known the deprived property of the land.

The second aspect is that desire to live in Sewell had not just purely economic reasons. In effect, in the "city of the stairs", unlike other places, there were not markets with privileged prices, but, on the contrary, their prices were something more expensive than those of Rancagua. From the beginning, for good or for bad, the market with cards was avoided as a tool of interchange and the commerce was in privat hands, with a discreet control of maximum prices.

The position of the camping in the land is original, as it is not frequent in America to find operations in a so steep mountain range. Although The Andes (Los Andes) crosses the continent from end to end, is in this place that takes place greater slopes, those than are going to take to the camping to be placed astride in the mountain, marking the summit with stairs that are going to be as a vertebra and to give it the name: the "city of the stairs".

Considering these antecedents, the degree of originality of the city is very high, national as much as within the international framework, and it does not recognize previous model nor explicit references.

As far as the singularity of Sewell, it can be affirmed that there is in the world no another equal or similar place.

To begin with, it is difficult that a city-camping does not have a high degree of unity, for reasons of geographic location, economy of base, materiality of its constructions, etc. Nevertheless, in the case of industrial cities, these variables usually take similar values by extreme exigencies of the environment, as in the case of the old saltpeter offices - some of which they are national monuments that constitute a typology of industrial establishment.

The case of Sewell is different, because it is a precise situation, with a gestation that was an answer to an unknown problem in history of the Chilean mining that in the matter of copper and saltpeter took root of preference in warm territories of the north of the country.

And more, it is difficult that in a future, human establishment can be generated similar to Sewell, since the new mines that enter operation do not give origin to the camping sense, where the family, the house and the work were confused in a whole. On the other hand, the laws and decrees on architecture and urbanism in use would make another Sewell impossible, as certainly also another Valparaiso, the one of hills.

The Representativeness of Sewell derives from his process of genesis and development that constitutes an epic that combined boldness, effort and tragedy, in a scale never seen before in this type of companies.

Usually one thinks from the "world developed" - with too much frequency - that the extraction and benefit of raw materials is a simple and also as a simple act of harvesting, when the reality shows it to us as an arduous and laborious task that has as scene ardent desert, humid and rarefied tunnels in the Earth entrails, the deoxidized atmosphere of the mountain or vastness without scale of the oceans.

The history of this city-camping is transferred by painful experiences, that touch so much the intimate tragedy as the social one: the system of "test and error", with which its urban plane was developed, cost many lives, taken care of the inexperience of its pioneers with the behavior of the high mountain range, every time they were foreign of prairie and Chileans of countryside.

Sewell is located 37,2 miles of Rancagua and 6,988 feet of altitude in the middle of an imposing mountain range landscape. The operation of the mineral was founded by William Braden in 1905 as part of the operation plan of The Lieutenant mineral (Mineral El Teniente) and baptized in honor to Barton Sewell, first president of the company Braden Copper Co. In its beginnings was a primitive establishment, with some cabins and collective enclosures, constructed by the workers with zinc plates and walls of pircas.

In the decade of 1960 Sewell it got to lodge more than 16,000 inhabitants and one complete infrastructure of services, such as hospital, school, court, mail, theater, casino, swimming pool, and skating field, among others. In 1969 the gradual uninhabited began towards Rancagua.

Sewell conserves many of the industrial facilities and the characteristic buildings today, which have been recovered carefully, showing alive colors. The in to live blocks - or group-of simple design, constructed in wood, they get to have up to 5 floors. The oldest ones are in the superior part and the inferior North zone. The original architecture and disposition of the complex are determined by the climate - cold and snow in winter and by its location in a promontory of the mountain, in the heat of mountain range: the rooms in the North slope taking advantage of the sun, and the industrial part, to the south.

In many parts the stairs have replaced the streets, that’s why Sewell is well-known also as the City of the Stairs (Ciudad de las Escaleras), the main one of them and axis of the camping, crosses all the city and from her pedestrians footpaths comes off following the levels of the hill. At one side of the great stairs is the O’Higgins Park (Plaza O’Higgins that was the main point of social reunion. Next to the Arsenal of Trains (Maestranza de Trenes) and the ex- Industrial School (Escuela Industrial) was turned in the Museum of the Great Mining of Copper (Museo de la gran Minería del Cobre), with a sample of the history of the camping and the mining of copper in general. The access to the camping is only authorized in organized tours.