Last modified: 2016-04-25 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/e/es-mu-un.gif)
Flag of La Unión - Image by Ivan Sache, 5 May 2015
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The municipality of La Unión (19,452 inhabitants in 2014; 2,460 ha; municipal website) is located in the south-east of the Region of Murcia, 50 km of Murcia and 10 km of Cartagena.
La Unión was connected all along the history with mines of lead,
silver, zinc and iron. Mining is documented back to the Prehistoric
(Mina Balsa and Atalaya) and Iberian (Cabezo Agudo) times. The Romans
industrialized the activity, employing up to 40,000 slaves in the
mines; the villa of Huerto del Paturro (1st century BC - 3rd century),
discovered in Portmán (Latin, Portus Magnus, the Big Port), is
considered as one of the most important Roman remains in the Region of
Murcia.
Mining then disappeared until 1840, when underground extraction of ore
allowed the establishment of furnaces and forges. Hundreds of
immigrants came from the Province of Almería (Andalusia). The
demographic boom prompted separation from Cartagena: Garbanzal,
Herrerías, Portmán and Roche formed the new municipality of Valle de
El Garbanzal, established on 1 January 1860. Following quarrels
between the inhabitants of the two main settlements, Garbanzal and
Herrerías, the young municipality was renamed La Unión in 1868.
The
local economy, however, remained flimsy and submitted to boom-and-bust
cycles, being totally dependent of the variations of the prices of ore
at the London stock exchange.
La Unión experienced its Gilded Age at the turn of the 19th and 20th
centuries; in 1908, La Unión was the 4th most populous municipality in
the Region of Murcia, with 35,000 inhabitants. The town was then
rearranged, with the building of the Market Hall, of the Town Hall and
of the Church of the Rosary. At the time, the hard working conditions
caused social unrest, especially in 1898 and 1916.
The mining crisis caused the decline of the town after the First World
War, aggravated during the Civil War. Emigration caused the population
of La Unión to decrease down to 10,000 in 1950. Technological
modernization (opencast extraction and washing by differential
floating) reactivated the mines, which were eventually closed in 1991,
ending two millenniums of mining activity in the region.
La Unión is the birth town of the writer Andrés Cegarra Salcedo
(1894-1928). Cegarra founded in 1912 the review Juventud, signing
his articles as "Salvador Gómez" or "Marcial Berroeta"; from 1912 to
1914, he directed the Worker's School, aimed at providing education to
the orphans and the miner's children. Left totally paralyzed in 1915,
Cegarra hardly left his birth town, where he was remembered as "always
optimist and cheerfully friendly". He dictated his further tales,
poems and articles (Sombras, Gaviota y otros ensayos, La Unión,
ciudad minera) to his sister María. In 1918, Cegarra presented his
play Olvidar in the town's theatre and initiated with Pedro García
Valdés the "Editorial Levante" project, aimed at popularizing the
works of the local writers of the time.
Encouraged by her brother, María Cegarra Salcedo (1899-1993) taught
chemistry, being the first women in Spain to be awarded the title of
perito (expert).in chemistry. A noted poet, she was a close friend
of Carmen Conde (1907-1996), the first women enrolled in the Royal
Academy of Spanish Language, and of the poet and playwright Miguel
Hernández (1910-1942).
Ivan Sache, 5 May 2015
The flag of La Unión (photo, photo) is white with the municipal coat of arms in the center.
The coat of arms of La Unión is prescribed by Decree No. 1,600,
adopted on 26 June 1975 by the Spanish Government and published on 18
July 1975 in the Spanish official gazette, No. 171, p. 15,310 (text).
The "rehabilitated" coat of arms, which was validated by the Royal Academy of
History, is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Gules a miner's lamp or superimposed to a sledgehammer sable and a pickaxe of the same crossed per saltire, 2. Azure a mount argent with a mine gallery sable ensigned by five bees argent per saltire. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.
The 1st quarter features miner's tools. The 2nd quarter features the
ore mountain (Sierra Minera), while the bees are a symbol of
relentless work.
The arms were originally adopted on 25 August 1926 by the Municipal
Council, as proposed by the chief of the town's militia (somatén).
During the Holy Week, the penitents carry miner's tools and lamps
during the processions.
[Entre Pueblos, 6 February 2010]
Ivan Sache, 5 May 2015