Pekan Sungai Besi, formerly a prosperous mining town in Kuala Lumpur, is fighting to preserve its history.
The town, which has a rich 80-year history and was a part of the massive Sungei Besi Tin Mine, is hoping more can be done to draw tourists.
In its heyday, local businesses serving the local populace included restaurants, clothing stores, cobblers, sundry shops, and mining company offices housed in the pre-war buildings constructed during the British colonial era.
But as the city has grown more urbanised and its economy has changed, the memories of its tin mining past have faded. Most of the town’s charm has evaporated.
Authorities’ attempts to revitalise the area through beautification and infrastructure improvements have not yielded much success, and it appears that plans for additional redevelopment have come to a standstill.
Residents of Pekan Sungai Besi are struggling with dwindling nostalgia for a bygone era.The town itself will keep deteriorating if its legacy is not maintained.
In order to accommodate the extensive tin mining operations in the region and house miners who were transferred from temporary quarters close to the current location of The Mines development, Pekan Sungai Besi was developed in the 1930s.
Chinese speakers refer to the town as “Xin Jie Chang” (new thoroughfare).Part of the Sungei Besi Tin Mine, the world’s largest and deepest open-pit alluvial tin mine, once contained it.
According to historian JM Gullick in A History of Kuala Lumpur, the massive Sungai Besi mine covered 1ha at working level, 24 metres below surface level, and nearly 5ha at surface level.
There once lived a large Chinese population in the town and its environs.
But when Pekan Sungai Besi was walled off by the communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s during the Malayan Emergency, the Chinese population drastically decreased.
The community was uprooted by British authorities and relocated to new villages like Balakong New Village, Salak South New Village, and Serdang New Village. Pekan Sungai Besi’s demographics gradually changed
The pre-war character of Pekan Sungai Besi, according to former mayor Tan Sri Ahmad Phesal Talib, could draw in more tourists.
