IMPORTANT!READ THIS FIRST! Before you press ‘Start’, please read this Introduction to the audio tour first. You can also listen to it. Scroll down the text: at the bottom you can touch the audio icon. The Introduction will give you a short history of the Eagle Refinery, and it will provide you with a brief explanation as to how to use this audio tour.IntroductionWelcome to the Eagle History Audio Tour. The Aruba that you now see around you, was completely different not so long ago. With this tour we would like to take you back in the history of one of our oil refineries, the enormous impact that they had on the Second World War, and the effects of the war on Aruba. We will show you what is still left as silent witnesses of those days. This trip will take you to 5 places of historical interest.  It all started in the 1920’s. There were two leading oil companies in the world, Dutch/British SHELL and American Standard Oil of New Jersey, ESSO. The former had a major refinery on Aruba’s sister island Curaçao.Crude oil came from Lake Maracaibo, on the north-western shore of Venezuela, not far from both islands, but a big problem was that regular ocean tankers could not cross the shallow entrance to the Lake to reach the oil fields. To solve it, flat bottom lake tankers had been built to get the crude oil to the ocean tankers off shore; the oil was then transshipped for further transportation to refineries elsewhere.This was a difficult process and thus ESSO started to look for a suitable harbor for oil storage and a transshipment station. They found the perfect place in San Nicolas Bay and harbor, once used by the Aruba Phosphate Industries. But very soon the initial plans changed and it was decided to build a refinery instead, the Lago Oil and Transport Company, Ltd. That was in 1924. Once completed, lake tankers would shuttle between Lake Maracaibo and Aruba’s Lago Refinery.  ESSO’s counterpart on the global market, SHELL, owned vast oil fields in Venezuela but was reluctant to build refineries in this politically unstable country. The example of ESSO, building a refinery on Aruba, was swiftly followed by Dutch Shell. They secured a lease of a large terrain, west of Oranjestad, with 5 kilometers of coast line for a 75-year concession. Construction started in 1927.The relatively small Eagle Refinery was completed in 1928 and produced its first barrels of refined oil by the end of 1928, six months earlier than Lago. It had a large, 400-meter long pier, which stretched out into the ocean. The F-shaped construction allowed two large and two smaller tankers to dock there. A railroad connected tankers to the refinery. Please continue reading or listening to the continuation of this story in Stop #1, the Eagle Main Office building. This tour has been routed along the beach as well as inland. With our directions you will be able to visit the 5 sites. You don’t need to follow the order of this audio tour: once you are near one of the sites, you will drive or walk into a GPS-zone. This will start automatically giving you the information on what there is to see. If the audio doesn’t start, you can either read the information or tap on the location you are at on the screen. This will set off the audio. You’ll get audio directions on the way or you can also use your own GPS-system.Press Start now and enjoy this unique tour!This audio tour was made by the Monuments Fund Aruba in cooperation with Dutch Heritage World Tours, Amsterdam. https://www.monumentenfondsaruba.comhttps://www.dutchheritageworldtours.nl Text: Evert Bongers http://www.historiadiaruba.aw Voice-over: Grace Angela Henry  https://graceangelahenry.comWe’ve done our utmost to identify the sources and holders of rights to the images used. Any person or organization we have overlooked may contact us:info@monumentenfondsaruba.com