The Guggenheim-backed Chile Exploration Company begins industrial-scale open-pit extraction at Chuquicamata in the Atacama Desert, creating the largest open-pit copper mine in the world. Utilizing massive steam shovels and a pioneering electrolytic refining process, Chuquicamata produces copper on an unprecedented scale, fueling the global demand for electrical wiring during World War I and the roaring 1920s electrification boom. The mine becomes a massive American corporate enclave within Chile, generating immense wealth but drawing sharp criticism over labor conditions and foreign control of national resources.

Chuquicamata's dramatic desert landscape and intense labor conflicts leave a profound mark on Chilean poetry, most notably in Pablo Neruda's epic 'Canto General'. Neruda dedicates verses specifically to the copper miners of the high Atacama, using the dry, scarred red earth of Chuquicamata as an extended metaphor for imperialist exploitation, working-class resilience, and the urgent necessity for national solidarity and resource nationalization.