The Belgians founded a mining town here called Élisabethville in 1910 to exploit their very first mine in Katanga, Étoile du Congo (“Star of the Congo”), which is just south of Ruashi. Excavations at Ruashi followed in 1919. The original settlement contained white-owned businesses surrounded by tree-lined streets where the Europeans lived. Mine-worker compounds for African laborers were erected in patchwork plots near Étoile and Ruashi. Both mines still operate today,
