LOCAL INDUSTRY

SANTA MARTA DE MAGASCA. A SMALL LOCAL INDUSTRY.

There were always in the village carpenters, blacksmiths, seamstresses, bricklayers, stonemasons, weavers or millers. As remains of these ancestral professions, we have the hydraulic mill of the River Magasca, the tile factory of “Las Suertes" or the popular architecture so rooted in the village.

The building of “La fábrica" (the factory), nowadays restored as a hunting shelter, always housed small local industries. Among other uses, it was the bakery and the first electricity generator of the village in the middle of the last century, through a diesel engine that has become a decorative element in a lounge. 

The bakery in Santa Marta is one of the few bakeries that still make the bread in a wood-burning oven in a traditional way. 

In the 1970s began one of the most popular industries of Marta in recent decades: the locksmith. Of a family nature, neighbours of the village have been part of the staff. The building that currently occupies was opened at the beginning of the 1990s. It has done works at the national level. It is one of the few locksmiths’ that is still working the forging in a traditional way, heating the metal in a coal forge and giving shape with the hammer over the anvil. Its owner Virgilio Caballero, still maintains his know-how like the blacksmiths in the past.

SANTA MARTA DE MAGASCA. LAND OF PARTRIDGES

Santa Marta of Magasca is known for its hunting resources. Its emblem and the distinguishing mark is without a doubt the red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa). All the modalities of its hunting have an optimal result in our area, which is the ideal area for this bird. In addition, the rabbit and the hare were always present abundantly.

A turning point in the development of the small game hunting in Santa Marta, which has been a benefit to the local population and an element of international dissemination of a well-deserved fame, was the creation of a partridges farm by the marteño Olegario González. Since then, he has carried out a selective breeding and he has certified red-legged partridges. 

The surroundings of Santa Marta of Magasca is a seal of guarantee of good birds.

SANTA MARTA OF MAGASCA. THE LOOMS

In the early 1960s a project has been started at the initiative of the Countess of Romanones and the priest of the village; like the partridge hunting, this project would disseminate the name of Santa Marta throughout the world: The Carpet Factory or the Looms of Santa Marta. Tens of marteños have worked there manually and they have made many different carpets, taking them to places as far away and unique as the White House in Washington, Mexico or Japan. They occupied different premises, for example, the old cinema and the municipal building, currently occupied by a carpenter’s workshop, whose craft furniture also have a well-deserved fame in the region. 

The "Cooperative of handmade carpets of Santa Marta" had its heyday in the 1970s, but the changes in the markets and the low demand of the handmade products, so it finally closed at the mid-1990s. Therefore, it ended one of the most well-known episodes in the recent history of Santa Marta.