Historically significant closed coal shaft at El Entrego, unique as the first mine in Spain managed by its workers, with restored buildings housing a workers' movement museum project.
Pozu San Vicente is a closed bituminous coal shaft situated beside the village of San Vicente, in the parroquia of Linares, concejo of San Martín del Rey Aurelio, Asturias. Coal had been extracted in the area since the nineteenth century. In 1883 a group of concessions known as the Coto San Vicente was formed and worked by private individuals.
In 1916 the company Carbones de San Vicente was created, sinking the present small vertical shaft between 1918 and 1919. The shaft's historical significance derives from a unique episode of worker self-management: after the owner Víctor Felgueroso Figar drove the company to financial crisis and disappeared with union funds in 1926, the miners' union SOMA took over the mine's management, converting it into the only mine in Spain to operate continuously under direct worker control. This self-management ended with the expropriation of the mine in 1938 by the Francoist government.
The mine subsequently passed through several owners before integration into Hunosa in 1970, after which it served as an auxiliary shaft until closure. The 1919 headframe of 16.80 metres to the pulley axis survives. Between 1998 and 2000 the facilities were rehabilitated by the FUCOMI school workshop, with a workers' movement museum project linked to the nearby Museo de la Minería de Asturias initiated but subsequently halted.
The concessions that would become Coto San Vicente had been worked by private individuals since at least 1883, when a group of eight concessions was formed in this area beside the river Nalón in the parroquia of Linares, concejo of San Martín del Rey Aurelio. In 1916 the company Carbones de San Vicente was established under the presidency of Víctor Felgueroso Figar, a descendant of the Hermanos Felgueroso, and between 1918 and 1919 the present vertical shaft was sunk. The headframe, standing at 16.80 metres to the pulley axis, was erected at this time and survives at the site.
The shaft was small, using a single-wagon cage, and a bocamina existed near the settlement. Numerous conflicts resulting from failures to pay wages brought the company into severe financial difficulty by 1925. In 1926 the miners' union Sindicato de Obreros Mineros Asturianos (SOMA) attempted to resolve the situation by making a loan of 95,000 pesetas to the company against guarantees of 313 shares in the enterprise and 150 company bonds, as well as an obligation to pay the outstanding wages.
Once Felgueroso received the funds he absconded, abandoning the workers entirely. In 1926 the SOMA took direct charge of the mine's management, and in 1927 became its proprietor — an event described by experts as the only case of continuous sustained self-management of a mine by workers in Spain. Under SOMA management, the economic debt was eliminated, wages improved, medical care was introduced, and the installations were modernised.
Production fell sharply following the financial crisis of 1929. The period of self-management ended in 1938, when the mine was seized by the Francoist government. It passed first to the Delegación Nacional de Sindicatos, and in 1957 to the company Hulleras del Rey Aurelio S.A. (REYASA), which maintained limited extractive activity.
In 1970 Hunosa acquired the shaft for approximately one million pesetas, converting it into an auxiliary of the nearby Pozo María Luisa. In 1994 the mine's spoil heap was recovered and used as the site of the Museo de la Minería de Asturias. Between 1998 and 2000 the installations of the Pozu San Vicente were rehabilitated by the FUCOMI school workshop.
The project envisaged creating a workers' movement interpretation centre linked to the Museo de la Minería via an old underground tunnel. An underground communication gallery was subsequently opened between the shaft and the museum. The project remained partially unrealised as of the consulted sources, though the main cross-section had been incorporated into the museum visit and the shaft's facilities housed elements of the workers' movement museum.