Mining at Parsettens from 1941-1945

On the 12th November 1945 the production at the open pit manganese deposit at Parsettens has been shut down. It was a really tiresome work the numerous miners have done. The ore was extremely hard. Hard were also the conditions. The daily working time was 11 hours, even on Saturday. On Sunday morning some of them had to prepare exploitation for the following week.

The drilling was done by hand. One man was holding a chisel, the other had a sledge. After each stroke with the sledge the drilling bar had to be turned about 45 degrees. From time to time the blast hole was cleaned from the drilling powder with a scoop. At the end of the exploitation period the work was made easier with the help of a pneumatic drill.

The exploitation was along a vein. The ore containing rocks were smashed into handy pieces and pushed in a lore leading to an aerial ropeway of 280 m length,

from where it was transported in two baskets of 100 kg capacity each to the lower mine. From there it was brought by a funicular to the road in the Val d'Err and then to Tinizong with the help of carts,

pulled by horses or even cows over a distance of 9 km and a difference of altitude of nearly 900 m. It took seven tiresome hours to go up to the valley, to fill up the cart with ore and to return down to Tinizong.
Later the ore was brought to the foundry by trucks and railway to Bodio or Wimmis.

In spring the exploitation began at the end of May and ended in October/November. During this period the miners were living in a hutted camp in the Val d'Err, near the lower end of the funicular. The miners were passing their free time by playing cards, football or reading books. For their hard work they earned about 0.90 to 1.50 Swiss Francs an hour.