[2] At the end of the 1880s, control of the firm passed to the Rothschild family, which greatly increased the scale of mining operations.

[3] The company needed to get the ore produced at the mines to Britain, so in the two years after purchase an 83-mile railway was built, following the course of the Rio Tinto, with four tunnels and ten bridges.

The pier was designed by the engineers, Sir George Barclay Bruce and Thomas Gibson and was constructed between 1874 and 1876.

[5] Both men already had considerable experience of railway and dock construction, including in Madras in India.

[8] The Rio Tinto pier began with an initial 238-meter section formed by an earth embankment built on concrete and brick.

[8] The pier remained in service until May 1975 when ships began to use a new facility in the nearby port of Huelva.

Soon after that a section was removed to make way for widening of the road that goes along the river and the pier was effectively abandoned and fell into decline.