Atacama Region, Chile

 Paul Treutler - view at Copiapó

español / deutsch / english

Paul Treutler
Picture: View of Copiapó from the hill behind the present-day part of the town called "Borgoño". You can see the old railway station buildings and the rail facilities of the recently built railway.
The row of trees from right to left corresponds to today's Alameda with the church of San Francisco in the right half of the picture. The downtown area is in a continuous line of railroad tracks.

Paul Treutler (1882):
"From our point of view, the railway running from the railway station deep below us, which ended in Caldera, first passing through fields and gardens, then through the sea of sand, ended up in Caldera, which harbour could be clearly recognized from here (# 1). At the railway station you could see a large number of high heaps of silver, gold and copper ores, where the mine owners and metal buyers had probably built up their defeats. Here there was always a busy life, with trains of muzzles loaded with ores from the steep mountain slopes moving down to this place, on the other hand large rows of wagons with metals arrived and many people were busy loading ores into the railway wagons to send them to Caldera. From the train station there was a beautiful avenue of Italian poplars running from one mountain range to the other across the Alameda valley, a public walk where on Sundays military music played and the inhabitants of Copiapo were looking for refreshment in the shade of the trees.

Drawing in large  (Chapter - Pictures of Chile and Atacama)