Caracoles

Caracoles was a silver mining district in what is now Antofagasta Region, Chile. At the time of official discovery in 1870 the district was located in Bolivia. The silver ores of Caracoles were discovered on March 24, 1870, by a Chilean prospecting team led by José Díaz Gana that had departed from the port town of Antofagasta. Subsequently, the ores were extracted with Chilean capital and miners. It was the last major discovery of the Chilean silver rushes. According to Oreste Plath "some old miners believe that" Caracoles was discovered much earlier, presumably in 1811, by two Aragonese men who were escaping persecution during the independence era. However, the location of the outcrop is said to have been forgotten. The site of Caracoles evolved rapidly from a group of rudimentary shelters and huts in 1870 to a small hamlet in 1871. Afterwards the settlement continued to grow reaching a population of several thousand inhabitants.

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