Birkengang pit

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Birkengang pit
General information about the mine
Mining technology Underground mining
Information about the mining company
Employees 302
Start of operation 1803
End of operation 1883
Funded raw materials
Degradation of Hard coal / hard coal
Hard coal

Seam name

Large cabbage
Hard coal
Degradation of Hard coal

Gang name

New large cabbage
Geographical location
Coordinates 50 ° 47 '50.2 "  N , 6 ° 15' 7"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 47 '50.2 "  N , 6 ° 15' 7"  E
Birkengang Pit (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Birkengang pit
Location of the Birkengang pit
Location Birch walkway
local community Stolberg (Rhld.)
City region ( NUTS3 ) Aachen
country State of North Rhine-Westphalia
Country Germany
District Inderevier

The Birkengang pit is a former hard coal mine in the southern town of Birkengang, which belonged to Eschweiler until 1935 . It belongs to the so-called outer works of the Eschweiler Kohlberg in the Inderevier . Today you can still find the Waldschule settlement in the neighboring Eschweiler district and coal just below the surface of the earth in the Eschweiler city forest .

history

Pingen mining in the “birch cabbage” or “birch plant” is mentioned for the first time in an invoice report by Eschweiler Bergvogte and mountain master Thomas Borcken in 1581.

In 1803 Napoléon Bonaparte enfeoffed the Wältgens family with the entire Eschweiler Kohlberg and in particular the " Centrum " and "Birkengang" mines . The mine director was engineer Johann Heinrich Graeser . In 1812 a shaft operated by Pferdegöpel , which replaced the old manual reel, was refurbished and expanded to a depth of 125 meters , where the "Großkohl" seam , which ran from southwest to northeast, was between the "Krebs" and "Breitgang" seams. The great thickness of this seam for the Eschweiler area made it possible to expect profitable mining , but the available pump capacity was not sufficient to drain the pit , and in 1816 operations were completely stopped after an unusually wet summer.

In 1817, however, a new dewatering shaft was sunk, and the "Göpelschacht" continued to be pumped. The construction of the "Christine" shaft for the "Kleinkohl" and "Großkohl" seams began in 1834 and the 40-horsepower steam engine for the "Neugroßkohl" shaft of the " Grube Centrum " was installed. 1841 their coal reserves of 138 m at the next were sole exhausted. In 1847 an attempt to develop further coal reserves for the neighboring zinc smelter Birkengang failed due to again extremely strong water inflows , but in 1855 a second succeeded. In the same year, 302 miners were employed in the mine. In 1857 the construction of the "Mathias" shaft began, through which in 1862 at 183 m a breakthrough for the mining of the "Christine" shaft took place. In 1865 the mine produced 17,189 quintals of coal (around 860 t ) and was well behind the "Grube Centrum" with 3,640,576 quintals and the " Atsch " and " Propstei " pits .

The end of the mine

After the seams had been dismantled, the “Birkengang” pit together with the “Kronprinz” shaft of the “Centrum” pit was abandoned in 1883 - as the penultimate pit in the wave of decommissioning from 1870 to 1891. On a map from 1910, seven pits in the area of ​​the Eschweiler city forest and the “ James pit ” are shown as abandoned. The mine area was north-northwest of the zinc smelter of the same name.

5203Stolberg1893Kopie.jpg

The "Birkengangstraße" at the Donnerberg barracks and the Birkengang district, which came to Stolberg in 1935, are named after the mine.

literature

  • Eschweiler History Association, Series Volume 14, Eschweiler 1993
  • Kauling, G. u. Oedinger H.-L., Coal and Iron in the Inderevier, Chair for Planning Theory at RWTH Aachen and EGV, Aachen 1989 (mentioned map is picture 113 on page 98)
  • Kohlhaas, Anton, history of hard coal mining in today's urban area of ​​Stolberg (Rhld.). Contributions to the history of Stolberg and local history, Vol. 12, Stolberg 1965.

See also

Eschweiler mining