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Slate quarry Saint-Quentin in Rimogne

Slate quarry Saint-Quentin in Rimogne

Slate quarry Saint-Quentin in Rimogne

With the closure of the Saint-Quentin headframe in 1971, slate mining in Rimogne, France, ended.

Slate mining in Rimogne goes back centuries, but with the arrival of entrepreneur Jean-Louis Rousseau, the industry branch gained momentum.

Rimogne became the figurehead of slate mining in France and the place became part of Diderot and d'Alembert's 'Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers' .

At the beginning of the 20th century, the mines gradually dried up and closed their doors. A brand new headframe was erected above the Saint-Quentin mine in 1961 to revive the region economically after the Second World War. The elevator took the miners 300 feet underground.

The new start was short-lived. In 1971, eight centuries of slate mining ended for good.

Today, the iron headframe is the only witness to the industrial activity in the region. The municipality of Rimogne bought the rusted construction in 2011 for a symbolic euro and built a park around the mine relics.

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