F3C

Coma Cros Cultural Factory

The Coma Cros textile factory of Salt: historical context

In the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the presence of water streams to provide the hydraulic energy needed to move the machinery, three important textile industries were set up in Salt. This provoked a radical change in the socioeconomic structure, traditionally based on agriculture, a massive influx of immigrants and a total reordering of the landscape.

On this new industrial landscape Coma Cros, one of the most important factory complexes of the lower River Ter, stood out for its production capacity and the large number of workers it employed. The corporation of Llach, Portabella and Co. began construction of the factory in 1850. After that it quickly prospered.

The steady expansion was interrupted between 1861 and 1865 when the American Civil War had a serious affect on the production of cotton and caused a severe crisis in the textile industries, the so-called cotton famine.

Between 1909 and 1912, Joan de Coma i Cros acquired all the textile industry properties of Salt (in 1911 he bought Coma Cros). Thus began the process of reorganizing the industrial structure of Salt. By 1920 all the production was concentrated in the Coma Cros building..

During the Spanish Civil War, the anarchists took over one of the wings of the factory and converted it into an arms factory, which they named Kropotkin, in memory of Piotr Kropotkin, a Russian geographer and political thinker, considered one of the primary theorists of the anarchist movement.

When the Civil War ended the former owners reclaimed the factory and attempted to erase all traces of anarchism by painting the Kropotkin wing to cover up his name, painted on its main façade. The black paint with which it was written always showed up again on the surface and, after various unsuccessful attempts, the name was removed using a rasp and a hammer. Unknowingly, the name was engraved  into the stone.

Today, after all the renovation work, the name Kropotkin is still there, engraved into the main façade of the wing.