Pulpería

Pulpería was the name given to company stores and dining facilities in parts of South America, notably in the industries that extracted sodium nitrate from caliche deposits between 1850 and 1930 in Northern Chile in the current regions of Tarapaca and Antofagasta.

In Tarapacá and Antofagasta, the settlements of the nitrate companies were called “Oficinas Salitreras” or “Saltpeter villages”, located on the large and arid Pampa del Tamarugal and Atacama Desert.

The pulperías were an establishment that combined the services of the general stores and the Wild West barroom of the United States in the nineteenth century.

[1] Instead of using normal currency, the payment system of the wages was through tokens to obtain food rations valid only in the company store.

With the declining sale of nitrate, most of these mining centers were abandoned, causing a massive exodus of workers and leaving lonely ghost towns in the desert.