Keeping the past alive makes sense for many local actors who devote a lot of their time and energy to it.
Heritage, in the cultural sense of the term, is the result of a social construction, by which institutions or groups of individuals decide to protect and enhance an object, material or immaterial, according to criteria that are by nature heterogeneous and evolving: the aesthetics of the object and its historical importance being the most decisive arguments.
As for the industrial heritage, it does not only aim at the sites and their production equipment: it also applies to all the social, economic, cultural, religious or sporting infrastructures erected within the framework of a productive activity. to ensure the living conditions of the employees, to the collections of scientific and technical objects which are constituted and even to the landscapes.
How many times have we heard that “saving old machines and buildings is useless, the past is the past, let’s look to the future…”. However, we can project ourselves into the future while remembering the substrate, the humus on which our territory rests, knowing that the Basin has developed around coal, steel, glass and zinc.
Pioneers
The world of mining in particular is now part of the French cultural and social heritage, recognized by Unesco. During mining and miners day, the mayor of Decazeville, François Marty, saluted the precursors and visionaries of our sector: the remarkable work of geologist Pierre Vetter; the Aspibd with in particular the conservation of the Lacaze headframe, listed as a Historic Monument; the mining museum in Aubin with Lucien Mazars; the Museum of Memories in Cransac where Claude Lacout was able to unite around him a team of volunteers and create superb models.
“Hats off also to François Mazurek, who died too soon, volunteer guide in Aubin, and “Yéton” Garcia, in Cransac for their involvement in cultural mediation and the human dimension of their respective stories”.
Thanks to all these pioneers of industrial preservation, and today through the community tourist office, the glorious past of the Bassin decazevillois is transmitted to the younger generations, while generating in passing a small economic activity that is always appreciable.
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