Tacna was known for its mining industry; it had significant deposits of sodium nitrate and other resources. Its economic prosperity attracted a wave of immigrants from Italy. Today, their Italian Peruvian descendants live in the city and many of them still have Italian surnames. This era of successful commerce and agriculture ended drastically with the start of the War of the Pacific. Hosting a large Peru-Bolivian army under poor sanitary conditions the city lost a substantial part of its population to infectious diseases before its capture by Chile in May 1880 following a defeat of the allied army in the outskirts of the city by a Chilean force under General Manuel Baquedano.