Many in Barletta will remember with nostalgia the now disappeared cableway whose gigantic poles were once characteristic of a large part of the seafront now named after Mennea . Decades later, of that grandiose structure – which allowed the transport of salt from nearby Margherita di Savoia – only a few smaller artifacts remain a few hundred meters from the Levante beach :
The history of the cableway is closely linked to that of the salt pans of Margherita di Savoia : perhaps dating back even to the Paleolithic and mentioned in ancient Salapia , i.e. Salins , they were well known at least since Roman times as can be deduced from a geographical table of that era called Tabula Peutingeriana dated 318 AD, in which said locality is reported. At that time the whole area was under the control of the ancient Canusium and it is therefore easy to deduce that the first point of landing of the salt, mainly needed for food conservation, loaded at Salinis was the river port of Ofanto near Barletta (transport probably took placeby sea/river because in Roman times there was no terrestrial communication route for the transport of these goods in that section, even if this observation is still today the subject of debate among scholars) and from this locality transported up to Canusium for the subsequent distribution to populations and manufacturers, thanks to the connection of the same with the important Via Appia Traiana (that is the variant of the better known Via Appia which connected Beneventum (Benevento) to Brundisium (Brindisi), through Aecae (Troia), Herdonia (Ordona) , Canusium (Canosa di Puglia), Rubi (Ruvo di Puglia), Butontum (Bitonto).From this location the goods continued to travel along the coast touching Barium (Bari) and Egnatiawith all the surrounding cities and with the ports of Bardulos (ancient Barletta), as well as Brindisi, Benevento and the capital (Rome). All these localities were protagonists of the so-called ” salt path “, by sea/river between the ancient Salinis, Barletta (Bardulia)/Ofanto and Canusium. Relations between Salinis and Bardulia were destined to consolidate further: at the end of the XIII century and the beginning of the XIV, in fact, the Casale di Sancta Mariae de Salinis was born , which was forced to suffer a serious plague of that time:
the population was in fact hit by a malaria epidemic . The Salinari were thus forced to abandon their land, taking refuge in nearby Barletta . In the current city co-capital of the province, the “former salt workers” lived for about three centuries , lodging, almost as a separate community, at the Church of S. Agostino , which at the time was dedicated to the SS Salvatore, north of the city. The Antico Casale di Sancta Mariae de Salinis, thus abandoned lost its ancient denomination, and since everything was incorporated in Barletta, the Saline themselves took on the name of the city that housed the refugees from the salt pans, and from the 15th century they were called “Saline di Barletta“. This denomination of the locality resisted until 1879 , the year in which it assumed the current and much discussed name of Margherita di Savoia.
Since Margherita di Savoia had no commercial port, she continued to export salt to the mainland with the aid of horse-drawn carts on the shoreline in front of the salt-pan town, loaded onto barges in jute bags and transported offshore on the steamers awaiting the load. This type of loading and transport lasted until 1912 when the Canal Port of Margherita di Savoia was built, which unfortunately was not built in the dimensions suitable to accommodate steamers and ships, and therefore although a network with tracks was built that directly connected the salt farmyards with the port, the transport on the steamers waiting offshore always took place with the barges of which Before. All this happened until 1955, the year in which a Pharaonic Work was created which, however, did not have a long life:
the cable car , which connected Margherita di Savoia directly with the Port of Barletta . The majestic structure – avant-garde technology at the time – started near what is still the Impachettatrice , in the Paolo Stimolo area, a side street to Via Barletta. It allowed the transport of salt in special “trolleys”, subsequently embarked on ships moored at the Port of Barletta and shipped throughout Italy and Europe:
Promoted by the Municipal Administrations of Barletta and Margherita di Savoia, Mayors Paparella respectively (other sources mention Alvisi, probably the works were started with one and finished with another) and Salvatore COMITANGELO, under the impetus of Admiral Ferdinando CASARDI, the construction of the cableway which was inaugurated in 1955. It was 13 km long. and could guarantee the transport of 180 tons per hour , crossing the sea for 1500 meters starting from the vicinity of the cemetery of Barletta and up to the port thanks to the help of seven reinforced concrete pylons, 20 meters high and 200 meters apart from each other :
Costing the tidy sum of one billion lire , it stopped working in 1981 , just twenty-six years later. Unfortunately, administrations that were not prudent, once the transport of salt was almost exclusively carried out first by rail, and then particularly, by road, thought “good” not only not to use it anymore, but to spend further resources destroying what had been built ; instead of leaving things as they were, and hoping, if anything, to be able to reconvert the use of the cable car for other purposes, such as possibly for tourist purposes (hypothesis of a walk on the fields and the Ofantino sea between Margherita di Savoia and Barletta as recalled by a palette impressionist by the historic artist from Barletta Giuseppe De Nittis ):
Of that grandiose work, nothing remains other than its well imprinted image, in my eyes and in my mind and a few concrete pylons in the countryside of Margherita-Barletta not demolished. According to some journalistic reconstructions, inflation and public debt put the entire economic system into crisis starting from the 70s of the last century. Above all, the Margherita salt works industry paid the price, but also the environment , due to the increase in exhaust emissions from trucks (which replaced the more ecological cable car).
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