Almeria's Puerta del Ingenio: from factory to Civil War prison

On a historical tour of Almeria city, one of the obligatory stops is the 'Puerta del Ingenio'. Completed in 1885, in its day it was a symbol of prosperity and intense activity thanks to Andalucía's sugar cane industry, and later for the role it played as a place of entry and exit for a prison during the Civil War and the Franco era.

It has been linked to the manufacture of chemical products, to the production of cane sugar and finally to its use as a prison gate in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.

Nowadays, only the brick portico, made up of three arches, the work of the architect Enrique López Rull and the engineer Eduardo Torroja, remains. It is located between Los Molinos and El Puche, as a reminder of the 19th century, when the way of life, the economy and society were very different from modern-day Almeria.

In those years, Almeria's main industry centred around its mining and maritime trade. Therefore, the project to start up a cane sugar operation was seen as innovative and different and the aim was to diversify the city's sources of wealth and boost the economy. However, it soon became clear that the expected profitability was not being achieved, so the initiative gradually lost momentum and ended up closing.

 Historical Memory 

Over the years, for many people it has become an important historical landmark in the city which is worth preserving for various reasons; the building has much more history than its link with agriculture. During the Spanish Civil War and during the dictatorship it was used as a prison where more than 8000 Republicans were kept. The walls are no longer there, but the memory of the Falangist prisoners held there during the war and, once the war was over, of thousands of detainees crammed into its buildings, many of them for political reasons, remains in the city.

The Junta de Andalucía has reported that "the prisoners lived in unsanitary surroundings with hardly any space to sleep or relieve themselves. In the sugar mill there was also hunger, as well as a constant fear that the name of an accused person would ring out at any moment as an announcement of immediate death".