Croton

The port of Crotone dates back to the early 8th century BC, when the colony of Magna Graecia was founded and was an active center of trade with the mother country. A strategic point in the Mediterranean routes it passed through various historical periods: Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Aragonese, Bourbon and Austrian. The decline of the city during the Middle Ages also involved the port, which practically disappeared until, probably Charles V, had a sea landing built to serve the castle. The 18th century saw some modest resumption of port activity and the construction of a few piers. Development beginning in the 1920s and 1930s was due to the construction of the Sila hydroelectric power plants, the exploitation of the forests of the Little Sila and Gariglione, and the construction of Montecatini fertilizer plants and metallurgical plants for the production of electrolytic zinc by the French-Italian company Pertusola Sud. For these reasons the tracks of the two narrow-gauge railways Petilia-Crotone and Crotone-Timpa Grande were implanted on the piers of the port. Those years were prosperous for commerce and income in the province, but the collapse and structural crisis of the late 1980s downsized expectations.