Calle Luis Adaro

Just turned twenty, Luis de Adaro y Magro entered the Special School of Mining Engineers. It was 1865; he would graduate in 1872. He trained at Almadén and then set out for Asturias, which would become the setting for almost all his life. Between 1874 and 1875 he directed the work of a French company at the Mosquitera Mine, in Siero, and there set up the first mechanical coal-washing plant the region had seen. His name became tied to Gijón’s industrial rise: he was the first president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce and pushed for the great port to be built at El Musel, where it still stands. His final years were devoted to mapping the subsoil of all Spain. In October 1909 he took charge of the Commission for the Geological Map, which a Royal Decree of 1910 turned into the Geological Institute of Spain. He died in office in October 1915. Three years later, Sama de Langreo dedicated a monument to him that locals soon nicknamed “La Carbonera.”