The deep process of industrialization of Narni started in the second half of the 19th century and it has been influenced by some specific elements of this area: the big supply of level ground, the presence of efficient communication facilities and supply of hydraulic driving force. Particularly, the roads and the railway with its station (since 1860s) guaranteed the important connection with markets of central Italy and became one of the major transport corridors between Northern and Southern Italy.
The route of the railway was parallel to the Nera River that, flowing in the valley and into the Tiber, provided energy-producing capacity ready to be used in the factories. Moreover it’s important to know that the economic structure of Narni was made of poor agriculture, barely fertile soil that made the production difficult, metayage and difficulties in the modernization process.
The industrial development of the area, superior to the regional average, caused irreversible changes in the landscape, even creating new urban areas firstly in Narni Scalo (at the foot of the inhabited centre) then in the Nera Montoro plain. Being a hill town, Narni underwent the effects of the industrialization only indirectly, the opposite of what happened in Terni in those same years
The itinerary includes the three factories that began the industrial pole of Narni.
The first two were started in 1887 in Narni Scalo; being near the train station and the river they could easily divert water and supply their own production. One of those was the factory of the Società italiana per la concia delle pelli (Italian Tannery company) that in 1900 became headquarters of the Società Italiana dell'Elettrocarbonium (Italian Elettrocarbonium company) that aimed to start in Italy the production of electrodes for electric furnaces used in the iron and steel and electrochemical industry. The other factory was the one of the Società per la Fabbricazione e per il Commercio degli Oggetti in Caoutchouc, Guttaperca e Affini (Company for the Production and Commerce of Objects in Natural Rubber, Gutta-percha and similar goods), then, from 1894, Società Italiana del Linoleum e Prodotti Affini.
In 1915, in Nera Montoro was started the factory of the Società Italiana Ammoniaca Sintetica (SIAS) (Italian company of synthetic ammonia) and became the only electrochemical factory in Italy to use the Casale process to produce synthetic ammonia and by-products. To face the needs of in loco, full-time labour in the electrochemical factory of the Terni Società per l’Industria e l’Elettricità (Terni Company for the Industry and the Electricity) in 1930 the construction of the workers’ village was started. It included 14 residential buildings (houses with private doorway and surrounded by a personal green area with a vegetable garden and washtub), three buildings for facilities (school, swimming pool, toilets, drugstore and a shop) and a place of worship.
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