Graneros

Pre-hispanic period . The territory where the commune of Graneros is currently located shows verifiable evidence of early occupation by Indigenous peoples (10th millennium BCE). The Indigenous groups of the Cachapoal Valley were mainly the Picunches, who before the arrival of the Spanish were associated with the lonco Cachapoal and called themselves Cachapoales. Their main settlements were around what is now the city of Rancagua, along the river and valley of the same name, consisting of family-based groups that freely moved across their territory. At that time, the area of Graneros served as a passage northward through the Angostura Pass, north of Mostazal. The Cerro de La Compañía (La Compañía Hill) was a strategic point for controlling this route, and there was communication among the villages governed by the caciques of each sector. There is also evidence of early occupation (8th millennium BCE) by another originally nomadic, hunter-gatherer people known as the Chiquillanes, who seasonally crossed the Andes, reaching the valley and occasionally the coast. At the time of the Spanish conquest, these groups remained mostly on the Argentine side of the mountains. Before the conquest, the Picunches of each aillarehue surrendered peacefully to the Incas, since they had historically shown little resistance to external domination—unlike their southern Mapuche relatives, who had a more warrior-like culture. After the fall of the Inca Empire, several years passed before the Spanish arrived in these lands. When they did, they found cultivated maize fields and herds of llamas. There is also information about early copper mining in the interior areas of Codegua. The Spanish settlers first occupied what is now Rancagua, rebuilding the existing village. There is archaeological evidence of Inca presence in the area, associated with the Pucará de La Compañía, which likely served commercial and administrative purposes for the empire’s southern frontier. Colonial period and Chilean independence One of the first encomenderos of the northern cone of the region, mentioned in the Libro Becerro, was Don Gonzalo de los Ríos y Ávila, one of the soldiers who arrived with Pedro de Valdivia. For his services in the conquest, he was granted an estate in the Codegua Valley, another in La Ligua, and the administration of the gold washings of Marga-Marga. His son, Gonzalo de los Ríos y Encio, later inherited these lands. After his death, the property passed to other settlers and clergy through encomiendas or land grants, including Alonso de Toledo and his brother Luis de Toledo, owners of the “Punta de las Cabras” and “Queyemavida” estates—now part of the area known as Cerro Pan de Azúcar. In 1615, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) acquired both properties—one by cession and another by purchase—gradually expanding their holdings. In 1663, after a military expedition visited the Andean foothills above Rancagua, the Jesuits bought the Barahona family’s estate, which included the Codegua ravine and the mountainous lands between the Codegua and Coya rivers. By 1672, they had also purchased an abandoned Dominican estate near Machalí, reaching what is now Villa La Compañía. Over the next decades, boundary disputes arose with the Córdoba family, major landowners in the area. The Real Audiencia ultimately confirmed the Jesuits’ property rights in 1668. In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from all Spanish territories. Their hacienda passed to the Crown and was later auctioned to Count Mateo de Toro y Zambrano in 1771. The estate continued agricultural production as before, supplying much of the Chilean territory. After Toro y Zambrano’s death, his widow, Countess Josefa Dumont de Holdre, managed the estate amid Chile’s War of Independence. Despite her royalist sympathies, her daughter Nicolasa de Toro-Zambrano married the patriot Juan de Dios Correa de Saa y Martínez, ensuring the family retained the estate. Nicolasa played an active role in its management and successfully lobbied for the new southern railway line to include a station at the crossing of the two royal roads. Around this station, a settlement grew, which would become the modern city of Graneros. 19th century In 1859, the Santiago–Rancagua railway section was inaugurated. A provisional stop was authorized at Hijuela Los Graneros, and the definitive railway station, named “Graneros,” opened on July 14, 1860, giving the town its name. After the War of the Pacific (1883), Chile reorganized its administrative divisions, creating the province of O’Higgins on December 10, 1883. On November 7, 1885, Graneros was officially designated a villa (town). With the approval of the 1891 Law on Municipal Organization and Autonomous Communes, President Jorge Montt established the Municipality of Graneros on December 24, 1891. Its territory included the 7th subdelegation of La Compañía and the 8th of Codegua, within the Department of Rancagua. Although Codegua then had a larger population, political influence led to Graneros being chosen as the municipal seat. In 1893, Juan Rafael Ovalle subdivided four blocks of land he had purchased from his mother, creating five urban lots for sale. That same year, his mother Adelaida Correa Toro sold the Los Torunos estate to Gregorio Donoso, after gifting parcels to her tenants. On November 17, 1899, the act of the municipality’s foundation was read in Plaza Ovalle, attended by local authorities and residents. 20th century A major milestone occurred in 1901 when engineer Gilbert B. R. Hodgkinson and Juan Rafael Ovalle built the first automobile in Chile at the Casa Hodgkinson—a historic house still standing at the intersection of Avenida La Compañía and Avenida O’Higgins. This marked the beginning of local industry. Hodgkinson, of English origin, and Ovalle later founded the Maestranza Ovalle-Hodgkinson, a workshop that produced railroad parts and, later, narrow-gauge locomotives for the El Teniente copper mine. The establishment of El Teniente Mine effectively began in Graneros, which—thanks to its railway connection and proximity to the mine—became the operational center of the Braden Copper Company. Industrialization expanded during Chile’s Presidential Republic period (1925–1973). In 1936, the Weir Scott & Co. condensed milk factory became part of Nestlé, later renamed SONALEGRA (National Dairy Society of Graneros) and then CHIPRODAL (Chilean Food Production Company), diversifying into products like Nescafé, Milo, and infant cereals. In the mid-20th century, amid Latin America’s Developmentalism and Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) policies, CORFO (Production Development Corporation) promoted an industrial plant in the area to attract foreign capital. This led to the establishment of CORFIAT Rancagua, the Chilean subsidiary of Fiat, boosting local industry and housing development (including Villa Fiat). Following the 1973 military coup, the Graneros plant was intervened, and workers faced layoffs and persecution. The factory closed in 1981 amid the 1982 economic crisis, as neoliberal and monetarist reforms aligned with the Washington Consensus ushered in regional deindustrialization and a shift toward an agro-export economy. ==Demographics==