Patrimonial and territorial importance of hydroelectric legacy in the lower reaches of Saja (Cantabria)

Abstract

The existence of a large number water mills and iron foundries in the province of Santander, nowadays Cantabria, during the late of the 19th century, it made easy that they were installing the incipient ‘light plants’ very soon in this region, when it was waking the production of the hydroelectric power up. This factor helps to analyse the process of technological innovation in the communities which had a certain proto-industrial development as in case of the basin of the Saja-Besaya. This paper will explore the origin and the territorial effects of the power plants of El Pavón and La Flor, perhaps the Cantabrian first ones in the early twentieth century.