The name of Guixaró is associated with the country house known as Casa Gran del Guixaró. The toponym is known from a 17th-century document. The heiress of this house married Francesc Guixaró, and since 1627, the house became known as Casamitjana i Guixaró. In the 19th century, due to family disputes and inheritance issues, the Guixaró family sold the house and lands to Miquel Vilanova i Marsinyach, the heir of the country house of Sierra de Cabo de Costa in Puig-reig. In 1877, he commissioned an engineer to conduct a technical study for the construction of a sluice and a canal.
In 1879, Esteve Comelles i Cluet, from Berga, purchased part of the country house lands to build a cotton spinning and weaving factory. The factory was built between 1888 and 1889, and the old wooden sluice, with a small diversion canal, was built in 1895. From the outset, the factory was equipped with a turbine to transform water power into mechanical energy to drive the machinery and a steam engine to provide supplementary power during drought periods and fluctuations in the river's flow.
Mr. Comelles did not limit himself to building a factory. These were the days of industrial colonies, and alongside the Guixaró factory, housing for workers and a range of services and facilities were built so that workers could have everything they needed within the colony.
Another building constructed as a "service" for the workers was the church. Historically, the Guixaró church was located next to the factory, as was the director’s house. Today, a small chapel remains in the old school building. Until about thirty years ago, since the origin of the colonies, religion and the priest played a crucial role in the social order and daily life. The priest coordinated social and festive activities, acted as the owner’s vigilant eye in the colony, and spread the message that the owner was like a father to the workers, a protective figure who provided them with jobs, food, housing and services.
In 1902, Esteve Comelles, the colony’s founder, died, and the colony passed to his children. In 1917, the Comelles family sold it to Joan Prat Sellés from Manresa, who, along with his partners, sold it in 1929 to Marc Viladomiu i Santmartí, the owner of Viladomiu Nou. At this point, the colony experienced a resurgence: a road was built connecting Guixaró with Viladomiu Nou, worker housing was expanded with galleries for bathrooms and laundries, a new school was inaugurated in 1932 along with a football field, and by 1935, electricity and potable water were introduced.
After the Civil War, new services and facilities continued to appear: a new sluice and canal in 1942, a nursery in 1946, a library in 1948, a theatre in 1949 and new apartments in 1953. The factory’s electrical system was consolidated, and the industrial space expanded between 1948 and 1950. These improvements helped the colony gradually overcome the hardships of the post-war years.
By the 1970s, signs of crisis and the decline of the textile sector and the industrial colony model became more apparent. The colony began to lose population, and traditional services such as the school and shop closed. The factory ultimately shut down in the late 1980s. After the factory closed, the resident workers were given the option to purchase their homes. Today, around forty people live permanently in Guixaró, and the factory has once again resumed industrial activity.