When Bulawayo Was the Industrial Heart of Southern Africa

It is easy to forget today, but for two decades in the middle of the twentieth century, Bulawayo was one of Southern Africa’s most consequential industrial centres — second only to the Witwatersrand in Rhodesia and ahead of much of the region.

The textile mills along Belmont and Westondale alone employed over 22,000 people at their peak in 1968. The National Railways of Zimbabwe workshops at Raylton employed another 8,000. Steelworks at Bulawayo’s Stanbel site exported reinforcing bar across the region.

The infrastructure that made this possible — the railway junction, the water supply from Khami, the dense skilled labour pool — is still mostly in place, even where it has rusted. Several historians argue this is precisely why Bulawayo’s revival, when it comes, may be faster than expected.

“Cities can lose decades. They rarely lose the bones,” said historian Mandla Tshuma. “And Bulawayo has very good bones.”