Although it never reached the fame and production power of giants like Trabonella or Gessolungo, Gebbiarossa played an important role as a medium-sized mine, capable of sustaining trade networks and supporting the local economy.
Its position, on the edge of an agricultural area as vital as Delia’s, made it a meeting point between two worlds: on one side, rural tradition; on the other, the mining industrialization that radically transformed the landscape and society of the Nisseno area. The tunnels, calcaroni furnaces, and smelting structures that arose there testified to the intensity of an activity that required abundant - often very young - labor, contributing to that image of “sulfur capital” that Caltanissetta earned internationally.
Active from the second half of the nineteenth century until 1965, this sulfur mine initially used traditional techniques such as calcarelle and Gill furnaces to extract the mineral, also using local gypsum as fuel. By the 1960s, only a few sulfur mines - among them Gebbiarossa - were still managed by major foreign concessionaires, while the carusi, children and adolescents who carried sulfur blocks, filled the site with their exhausting daily labor.
Gebbiarossa, along with other medium-scale mines such as those of Sommatino and Riesi, formed the backbone of the mining basin: not the large centers that drew international attention, but the sites that ensured productive continuity, local presence, and territorial roots. It was precisely this network of intermediate mines that made the Nisseno system so powerful and resilient, able to sustain for decades the global demand for sulfur used in the chemical industry, explosives, and matches.
With the crisis of the sector starting in the 1930s, Gebbiarossa too experienced a slow decline, until its final abandonment. Today, the remaining ruins and mining traces are not only evidence of industrial archaeology but also a living memory of a community whose identity intertwined with the miners’ toil and the international scope of an economy that, for a century, made Sicily a global crossroads.
The area still preserves the remains of the extraction shaft, calcheroni furnaces, and descending tunnels, welcoming visitors through cycling and walking paths and guided tours promoted by universities and local guides who share anecdotes about mining life and the sacrifices of laborers’ families.