«Les gueules rouges» from the Luberon

The ochre mine as a source of changes from the field to the city (from the end of the XIXth century to the end of the XXth century)

Abstract

In Vaucluse, the “Colorado Provençal” in Rustrel, a former open-pit ochre mine, and the tunnels of Bruoux in Gargas, former underground ochre mines, are today two of the most visited tourist sites in the area. In the Luberon, the first ochre mines were exploited at the end of the eighteenth century. However, it was not until the end of the 19th century that the ochre mine had an irrevocable impact on the landscapes and local society of a few villages of the Luberon. Using public and private archives, this article studies the slow emergence of the ochre mine world and of its “Gueules Rouges” in the village at the end of the nineteenth century, its expansion until the 1930s, before its deindustrialization in the middle of the 20th century marking the end of the “Gueules Rouges”, and then its revival as an object of industrial tourism at the end of the 20th century. It allows us to examine from a new angle the economic, social, cultural and landscape changes of the Luberon between the end of the 19th century and the end of the 20th.