ARDOISIERE DES FONTAINESAt the beginning of the 20th century, this small hamlet of about 400 inhabit
ARDOISIERE DES FONTAINESAt the beginning of the 20th century, this small hamlet of about 400 inhabitants was the seat of one of the most important slate quarries in Belgium. The history of this slate mining began in 1845 with the drilling of a 30-meter-deep borehole, which made it possible to identify a vein of 8 meters in thickness. The slate quarry became Belgium’s most important exploitation. In the first years of the 20th century it employed 300 workers and produced up to 12 million slates per year. Its development was hampered in 1912 by a major landslide that made part of the mine inaccessible. In March 1912, some of the underground construction sites were swept away by a major landslide that impacted all the way to the surface, where parts of the village sank to 2.5 meters and several houses collapsed. All underground work was immediately halted and the company itself was dissolved. The operation was resumed in 1923. Different social forms will succeed each other in the management of the operation until its final closure in 2002. The company, which then employed 18 employees, did not have the necessary funds to modernize its equipment needed for increased productivity in a market where the sale of traditional slate became increasingly difficult. -- source link
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