The development of salt mining

If we do a leap in time we must stop in the fourteenth century, when less powerful monarchs allowed that Añana end up in the hands of noble lords, first under the dominion of the Monasterio de las Huelgas in Burgos and after that under the authority of the Sarmiento family, who became Counts of Salinas.

Finally, we want to refer to the salt monopoly imposed by Philip II in the mid sixteenth century and that ended with the Bourbon reforms of the old regime in 1869. During this phase of state control, the Crown forced the salt makers to change the system of production traditionally used. This caused a deep transformation of the entire Salt Valley, most of the structures we observe today belong to that stage.