A factory cafeteria transformed into a grocery store, a revived cement factory hotel, and a former factory town with guided tours.

For hundreds of cities and towns across the country, industrial activity represents a key factor in ensuring local development and jobs for residents. However, the ups and downs resulting from instability and a long series of economic crises often derail this path toward a prosperous future.

Therefore, faced with the impact caused by factory closures , several municipalities found a way out through tourism , a way to highlight, publicize, and share the natural, historical, and gastronomic attractions of each location.

Here are recorded the small epic stories of the rise, fall, and recovery of eight rural towns in the provinces of Buenos Aires , Entre Ríos, and Santa Fe, marked by the impact left on their inhabitants by a factory that is now part of the past.

To these could be added - among many others - the stories of Rawson (in the Chacabuco district) and its broom and cleaning products plant (closed in 2014) and Colonia Hinojo, near Olavarría, whose industrial bag production ceased operations in April of this year.

The old chimney of the idle Loma Negra facilities is a landmark for motorists approaching Pipinas on their way to the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires.

The old cement factory stopped producing lime and closed in 2001. The area's heyday coincided with the cement industry's prime period—between the 1940s and 1960s—which emerged in 1938 with the establishment of the Cordoba-based company Corcemar.

Following this watershed event that marked the factory's decline, the town's residents, led by the Pipinas Viva cooperative , designed a Community Tourism program and began restoring and reopening the cement factory's public pool hotel. Since 2014, part of the industrial plant has housed the Space Center of the National Commission for Space Activities (CONAE).

The visitor attraction extends to a route that encompasses the shellfish and logging corridor of the Southern Coastal Park - along the banks of the Río de la Plata -, the Sarandí beach resort - a bastion of sea bass, sole and moncholo fishing 4 km north of Pipinas -, the 1913 station of the La Plata-Pipinas railway branch that stopped running in 1977 and the stalls selling handicrafts and local products along the side of the road.

The Tandilia mountain range, which encompasses Barker and Villa Cacique , in the Benito Juárez district, is an ideal setting for trekking, climbing, zip-lining, photo safaris, mountain biking, and other adventure activities . During this new phase, tourists can also enjoy tastings of regional products and walks through raspberry plantations.

These recreational options received a major boost—as an alternative to counteract the decline and exodus of residents—following the interruption of production at Loma Negra between 2001 and 2004, and even more so after the factory's final closure in 2019.

Mining and industrial activity had begun in 1956 with the process of grinding, bagging and shipping Portland cement.

Although some industrial kilns survive around Cucullú, the heyday of this town in the San Andrés de Giles district was established decades ago, with the operation of more than fifty brick production plants.

In recent years, this place populated by just over 500 inhabitants - where the "potters" or "bricklayers" were - has regained its shine thanks to the incipient tourist development, which revolves around the Bar Casa Gallo restaurant - the recovered version of a general store opened in 1880 -, the Cucullú Athletic Club, the Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús chapel, the square and its Monument to the Oven Maker, the Santa Teresita bakery and the station, where in 1887 the Rural Tramway arrived for the first time from the Federico Lacroze station.

The opening of a cabin complex in 2021 marked the starting point for the recovery of this town in the Chascomús district, where one of the most important dairy plants in South America operated until 2003.

Founded in 1896, the industrial plant eventually employed more than 500 people in the large-scale production of milk, yogurt, dulce de leche, butter, and mozzarella.

After the factory closed, Sebastián Capiello and Virginia Costa Soto refurbished the factory's dining room to create their restaurant and café , La Pulpería de Gándara, the starting point for a walk through the town that also includes the San José convent —designed in 1939 by architect Alejandro Bustillo and abandoned since 1974—the train station, the 25 de Mayo school, and the Nuestra Señora del Rosario chapel, built in 1938.

Near this town in the Olavarría district, miners used chisels and sledgehammers to shape the blocks of red granite they extracted from the mountains and transported the material in two-wheeled carts to the mill and the lime kilns of the country's first Portland cement factory.

From that past, yearned for by the inhabitants , quarries, museums, open-air craters, and a historical and tourist tour often led by renowned guide Andrea Istillarte remain.

Meanwhile, at the La Calera 1888 cultural and historical center , Cecilia Alves - daughter and granddaughter of quarry workers and great-granddaughter of a pioneer stonecutter - explains the production process of two lime kilns that operated on the site.

These days, the landmarks of the area's past, its historic center, its natural surroundings, its production, and its geology are being revalued by the Sierras Bayas neighborhood association, Patrimonio de Sierras Bayas . They also presented a project to the Olavarría City Council to declare the cement plant—closed and unused since 2019—a "Historical and Cultural Heritage Site." In addition, in Sierras Bayas, you can visit the Station Museum, La Hormiga Park (created in an old cellar), and the Santa Lucía Chapel.

In 1994, the outlook began to darken for the residents of Altamira with the closure of Corinema, the factory that emerged in 1947 , when the Fadela brick and tile factory was installed.

Shortly after that period of uncertainty that left a hundred workers unemployed, the Achilli family launched their tourism, gastronomy, rural lodging, and wine-producing project, Nueva Corinema.

Little by little, tourism began to flow into this town located 8 kilometers from Mercedes, and the restored train station, the La Colorada cabin complex, the Lo de Curly country bowling alley, a brewery, and the old La Porteña store were added to the list of attractions .

12 km from Colón , Eric Evans Street and 17 de Mayo Avenue are an open display of typical Liebig English-style houses , born in 1903 as a factory town with the inauguration of the Colón factory.

Shortly after, it was converted into Liebig's Extract of Meat & Company, where more than 3,500 workers, working day and night shifts, produced meat extract and canned meat to supply war-torn Europe.

Liebig was officially recognized as a town in 1975 and the factory's activity declined until it closed in the early 1980s .

Guided tours are now organized, linking the remains of the cold storage facilities, power generators, warehouses, boilers, production plants, and a tin can factory.

It is worth adding to this historical circuit the chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, La Hilera (the chalets occupied by the factory's senior staff) and a flour mill, installed in 1880 in the nearby town of San José by the Swiss immigrant Juan Bautista Forclaz.

Here, halfway between Santa Fe and Rafaela , La Primera, the only piano factory in Argentina , was founded in 1939, which until its closure in 1992 produced 120 instruments per month.

Pilar's pianos were sold in Buenos Aires by the famous Antigua Casa Núñez and exported to Switzerland, Italy, and several South American countries . The factory employed 230 families and had a population of 10,000. Today, it doesn't exceed 7,000.

Before that time of prosperity, Pilar was an agricultural colony and its main source of employment was a flour mill .

Now, little by little, tourist interest is emerging in historical sites , such as the General San Martín Institute, the Italian-Argentine Society, the Nuestra Señora del Pilar parish (from 1909), the Popular Library, the Santa Marta School, the Pilar and Memoria squares, and the town museum.