El Alamin, a town built to house cotton and tobacco workers in the 1950s, was meant to be a utopia
Located just a short drive from the bustling Madrid, lies the forsaken village of El Alamin, which stands in stark contrast to the busy Spanish capital that boasts a population exceeding three million.
El Alamin, translating to “the world” in Arabic, was conceived in the 1950s as an idyllic settlement to accommodate cotton and tobacco workers. Heralded as a utopia for its 150 pioneers, the town comprised only three streets, adorned with 40 houses, a tavern, post office, and a church reflecting Communist architectural design, where inhabitants lived rent-free, paying solely for their electricity.
The vision for this secluded town sprang from the fourth Marquis de Comillas, Juan Claudio Güell y Churruca’s mind, who aligned himself with Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.
However, the local farmland suffered overexploitation “to the point of exhaustion”, leading to the degradation and fall of the village, as reported by the travel blog Madrid No Frills.
As time went on, the residents slowly deserted the village, and by the turn of the millennium, El Alamin had been completely vacated, reports the Express.
Presently, it attracts the attention of dark tourism enthusiasts keen to delve into its neglected edifices and discover the essence of life as it was roughly 75 years ago.
Nevertheless, since 2021 gaining access to wander the ghostly lanes of El Alamin has grown more challenging, now requiring the consent of the property owners.
Tamar Shemesh of Madrid No Frills shared that on December 18, 1957, the sister of the Marquis tied the knot in El Alamin’s church amidst a gathering of Spain’s crème de la crème families.
Lately, El Alamin has been shrouded with increasingly “darker mysteries”, she continued.
One eerie myth offers an account of the “real” cause behind the desertion of the town, detailing how one shepherd led his livestock to a nearby hill.
By dawn, the sheep and their guardian were found deceased, inciting terror throughout El Alamin and prompting its inhabitants to escape.
Dr Philip Stone, who heads the Institute for Dark Tourism Research at the University of Central Lancashire, told the Express that enigmatic spots like El Alamin stir a longing for bygone days.
“These ghost towns give us a sense of the people coming before us, but also of our own fast-moving world. When we see places that have literally stopped, it can bring a sense of nostalgia.”