Abandoned houses identified in Sierra Cabrera

    Los Moralicos is a tiny hamlet just to the south of the highest peak in the Sierra Cabrera mountains, about two and a half miles south-west of Cortijo Grande as the crow flies. It has given its name to the Asociacion de residentes de los Moralicos, an association which aims to preserve the history of and act as force to bring together all the 'serranos' (inhabitants of the Sierra) and lovers of the Sierra, an area which suffered in the seventies from a sharp depopulation due to its inhabitants moving out of their hamlets and cortijos and down to Turre, Mojacar, Los Gallardos and further afield.

    The association has recently finished a project which has involved the work of forty volunteers and has taken over two years. They have been identifying the ruins of houses and cortijos some of which have been abandoned for over fifty years, even finding the old rural school in Los Moralicos, they have also helped in finding previous residents who had emigrated to countries such as Argentina, Germany and France. Much of this work was done using documents provided by the Provincial Historical Archive. Thanks to this work many of the emigrants can now provide ownership documentation for younger family members or identify the houses where they were born.