The Ferriere di Dongo are the ironworks on the Albano stream, upstream of the centre of Dongo, which for two centuries gave work to much of the town. They belonged to the Rubini, then to the Falck, and from 1990 had other owners. According to the local press, in July 2026 the company occupying the site gave notice of dismissal to the remaining employees. It is not a museum: it is seen from the outside, along Dongo’s walking route.
History
The tradition of iron comes from the valley. The Camminacittà project places the first mention of iron mines in the Dongo area in a document of 1412, while Wikipedia’s article on the town cites 1465 as the first document: the sources do not agree. The Comune counts the working of iron from the mines of the Valle Dongana among the town’s oldest traditions, and the Comunità Montana, in the text reproduced by Camminacittà, notes that the Albano and Cavargna valleys and the Morobbia in Ticino preserve traces of mines, charcoal kilns, blast furnaces and forges along what it calls the «Via del Ferro».
In 1792 it was Pietro Rubini who took over the mines, furnace and forges of Count Cesare Giulini, whose agent he had been; almost 90 people worked there. Wikipedia gives a somewhat different succession: in 1771 the brothers Giacomo and Antonio Mainoni would have acquired the mines and plants, and in 1792 the Rubini would have arrived, builders of a charcoal-fired blast furnace for cast iron. The Fondazione ISEC dates the Ferriera di Dongo to 1818, and the Falck historical archive writes that its history goes back well before 1906.
In 1833 the Rubini called in an Alsatian engineer expert in ironmaking, Giorgio Enrico Falck, as a consultant. In 1839 the company «Rubini, Falck, Scalini e Comp.» was born: according to Camminacittà it brought to Dongo rolling mills in place of hammers, piston blowing machines and an English-style blast furnace never used before in Lombardy, and in 1841 the firm received a gold medal. After the political events of 1848-1849, Camminacittà says, the company aimed at immediate profit rather than innovation, and in 1863 technical management passed to Enrico Falck, son of Giorgio Enrico, married to Irene, daughter of Giuseppe Rubini. In 1880 Giulio Rubini closed the blast furnace and gave up extracting ore from the local mines.
On 26 January 1906 the Ferriere di Dongo merged, together with those of Vobarno and a plot of land at Sesto San Giovanni, into the new Società anonima Acciaierie e Ferriere Lombarde, set up in Milan on the initiative of a namesake grandson of the Alsatian consultant, also called Giorgio Enrico Falck. Camminacittà notes that at Dongo the workforce rose from 400 to 1,800; in the 1960s, according to an article by Arci Ecoinformazioni, there were 2,200 employees.
On 26 February 1990 the plant was sold by Falck to the Cagiva group of the Castiglioni family, according to Camminacittà and La Provincia di Como. After the bankruptcy of 2008-2009 the business passed, according to Ecoinformazioni, to a Chinese company. In May 2018 La Provincia wrote that the complex would go to auction in three lots, one still industrial, one for craft businesses and one, the port, to be developed for tourism.
2026
According to Arci Ecoinformazioni, production had been at a standstill since December 2024. On 24 July 2026 dismissal letters were delivered to the last employees: about a hundred according to Ecoinformazioni, 60 according to Italypost, which speaks of Dongo Casting, a company based in the area of the former Falck steelworks. According to Ecoinformazioni the property is split between one company that controlled production and another that holds the land and buildings, and the future of the area, it says, has no clear project yet.
What to see
From the right bank of the Albano, in via Irene Rubini Falk, Camminacittà points out a water conduit that fed the large ironworks, which stands a little further upstream; the warehouses were further downstream, next to the port. That is all the walking route offers: the plant is an industrial area, not a visitable stop.
On the route
The stretch from the church of Santa Maria in Martinico to Santo Stefano runs along the Albano right here. The full route is in the Dongo on foot itinerary.
Practical information
- The position on the map is approximate: the complex is large and the sources say only that it is «a little further upstream» of the stretch of via Irene Rubini Falk.
- We have not found organised visits or public opening of the plant. The area is industrial: it is best looked at from the road and from the stream bank.
- News is changing: the closure is recent and, according to the press, the fate of the area is open. The data on this page should be rechecked.
- Nearby: the sanctuary of the Madonna delle Lacrime and the church of Santa Maria in Martinico.
Sources
- Camminacittà, Dongo, points of interest: Ferriere di Dongo and Via del Ferro
- Camminacittà, Dongo path 1, stage 2
- Fondazione ISEC, Acciaierie e ferriere lombarde Falck
- Archivio storico AFL Falck, Dal 1906 agli anni Venti
- Comune di Dongo, Storia e territorio
- La Provincia di Como, Ex Falck, quando i Castiglioni hanno acquisito le Ferriere (2 April 2009)
- La Provincia, Ex Falck all’asta (23 May 2018)
- Arci Ecoinformazioni, L’area industriale di Dongo al capolinea? (23 July 2026)
- Arci Ecoinformazioni, Dongo al capolinea: licenziamento collettivo alla ex Falck (24 July 2026)
- Italypost, Chiude lo stabilimento di Dongo Casting (28 July 2026)
- Wikipedia, article on Dongo.
