The chimney is visible from afar, but the rest of the buildings of the Fábrica de Chave, including the employees' houses, a medical center and a bar, are mostly covered in sand. Only a few rusty machine parts peek out from the dunes. The brickworks was built at the end of the 19th century by the Benoliel family. Their trading company produced high-quality bricks and tiles here, which were transported from a now-vanished quay on the beach to the other islands and to the African mainland and sold there.
The coal for the kilns came from São Vicente.
Production was stopped again in 1910. There was a brief upturn with modern machines from Portugal, but in 1928 it was finally over. The bricks from the factory were identified by an engraved key (Chave).