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Origin and history

The Ars-en-Ré salt refinery was built in the 1st quarter of the 19th century, specifically in 1817, at the initiative of Benjamin Dubois-Fontaine, a salt merchant. Its objective was to purify the salt collected in the surrounding salt marshes by removing soil particles and bleaching it. This industrial site, equipped with three boilers in 1861, employed 20 workers and produced 1,500 tons of processed salt annually, exported via the port of Ars. The establishment played a key role in the revival of the local salt trade in the 19th century, before being sold in 1905 to the Western Salinary Society and to cease its activity in 1914, for lack of coal to power its machines.

The building, marked by a neo-classical architecture with a stone gable, dominates the harbour landscape facing salt marshes. It consists of two spans: one housed the drying mill, the other the boilers. Although its chimney was demolished in 1977 for safety reasons, the refinery remains a major architectural and historical testimony. Certain elements, such as the gable façade, the base of the chimney and a cistern, were listed in the historic monuments by order of 9 March 1989, thus preserving this unique industrial heritage.

Prior to its creation, the island of Re was already known for its salt marshes, but the refinery modernized production by introducing industrial processing techniques. Its decline at the beginning of the twentieth century reflected the economic upheavals of the time, including the scarcity of energy resources such as coal. Today, the site recalls the historical importance of salt in the local and regional economy, as well as the ingenuity of entrepreneurs such as Dubois-Fontaine, who marked the industrial landscape of Charente-Maritime.

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