SITE MUSEUM

ACOSTA MINE

The history of the Acosta Mine starts with the mining claim made by Thomas Antonio de Navarrete in 1727. From this time, the mine conserves its shape, an aqueduct and the perimeter walls. After 1824, with the arrival of an English company to the Real del Monte and Pachuca district, with Cornish type steam engines to drain the mines, huge engine houses were built in order to house them.

The Acosta Mine was one of the mines that were modified with this purpose. Once the English investors left, the mine remained in the hands of Mexican entrepreneurs (1849-1906), who acquired a new engine in 1870, starting the construction of an impressive engine house to install it together with a compressor. The vaults for the boilers were also built during this period.

Its modernization, in the early 20th century conducted by American investors with the use of electricity, transformed it. A winch was installed in its patio, and a powerful shaft hoist with its respective house, as well as a mill and a cable railway system to transport the mineral. From documentary sources and historical photos, information was collected to make a scale model showing, in a didactic manner, the architectural complex and mine operation at different moments of its history.

It is an unforgettable and fascinating experience for visitors to listen to work stories narrated by guides who used to be miners, while they go more than 400 meters into the darkness of the tunnel reaching a 170-meter depth in the shaft of “La Dificultad” Mine, an extraordinary place where, even today, miners still going down... symbol of the steam and electricity eras, also open to the public by AHMMAC.