Kolmanskop is a ghost town in the Namib Desert, which arose during the diamond fever of 1908 and by the mid-20th century had become a deserted landscape. As the sediments began to dry up, residents gradually left in search of new mines, and the last institution to close in the city was the hospital in 1956. Kolmanskop has been abandoned for 70 years and is slowly being covered by sand.
With its Kolmanskop appearance binding Two cases: local diamonds and uprisings of the Herero and Nama tribes against the German colonial administration. The uprisings that began in 1904 required the organization of supplies for the troops, and prompted the German South West African authorities to build railways from the port of Lüderitz to Keetmanshoop, 360 kilometers inland. The railways, in turn, required significant support costs: in the local climate, they were covered with sand, which road workers needed to constantly remove.
In 1908, one of them, Zachary Levala, discovered on a section of road just 10 kilometers from Lüderitz a “beautiful stone” – a diamond that laid the foundation of the Kolmanskop. The Levala stone, found near the tracks, was handed over to road construction director August Stauch, and German authorities soon declared almost the entire surrounding coast 100 kilometers inland a restricted zone, where organized diamond mining had begun.
Initially, prospectors at KBG, founded by Stosch Mining, collected it directly from the Earth’s surface. Dozens of workers knelt and crouched near the sand, walking near the railway meter by meter. This research method was possible thanks to the complete absence of vegetation in the Namibian desert and simple manual sieves. Initially, a small prospectors’ camp consisting of wooden houses was set up – and it was located at the railway junction.
The place where the first stones were found was marked by Johnny Coleman’s sand-covered wagon – from his surname and the German word kuppe, meaning hill, the name Kolmanskop emerged.
Already in 1909, diamond mining near Coleman Hill was developed on a completely different scale. Stauch ordered from the city several machines for mechanical washing, which made it possible to process up to one and a half thousand cubic meters of sand in an 18-hour working day. However, the machinery required water and electricity – as well as manpower and factory space, so large-scale construction began on the site of the temporary miners’ camp.
Electricity to Kolmanskop had to be supplied from a coal-fired power station in Lüderitz. There was also an alluvial station that transported seawater through a special water pipeline to wash the sand. Drinking water, like everything else necessary for life, was delivered by the Stauch company to Kolmanskop by rail – in the desert itself, nothing could be mined except diamonds themselves.
A side effect of developing the necessary infrastructure for production was that Kolmanskop at one time surpassed London in some respects – while the British capital was lit by gas, light bulbs burned in Kolmanskop’s streets, and electricity itself remained free for decades.
The miners’ wooden houses were soon replaced by brick and concrete buildings. The problem was that even in Lüderitz, let alone mainland Namibia, there were not enough suitable building materials. A lot of things – doors, windows, fittings and finishing materials – had to be delivered directly from Germany; The architecture of the new buildings was also typically German. This in many ways explains the unusual atmosphere of the now abandoned settlement – it is no coincidence that it resembles a typical European city that was accidentally abandoned and forgotten in the desert.
The peak of activity in Kolmanskop occurred in the late 1920s. By this time, there was a school, a gambling house, houses for the principal and teacher, two small hospitals (separately for KBG employees and for ordinary workers), a police station, a butcher shop, and a bakery. The center of the settlement was of course the diamond washing workshop (Centralwäsche), railway station and warehouses.
The end of the city came suddenly. In April 1930, the economic crisis of the Great Depression broke out, making diamond mining unprofitable. Production stopped – temporarily at first, with the hope of resuming after the economic situation improves. However, almost simultaneously, more profitable deposits were found at the mouth of the Orange River in southern Namibia. The company had to admit that Kolmanskop no longer had any future and had been transferring equipment for new production for several years. For some time, the hospital and the railway station were still functioning due to the need for life support on the railway, but already in 1956, the last residents left the Almas settlement. Kolmanskop has turned into a ghost town.