Pit good hope

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Pit good hope
General information about the mine
St Goarshausen Ehrenthal Grube Gute Hope.JPG
Dump over St. Goarshausen-Ehrenthal
other names Constantins-Erzlust
Prinzenstein
Sachsenhausen Mine
Consolidated Good Hope
Information about the mining company
Operating company Stolberger Zink AG
Start of operation 1758 on the left bank of the Rhine
1769 on the right bank of the Rhine
End of operation 1961
Funded raw materials
Degradation of Lead and zinc ores
Geographical location
Coordinates 50 ° 10 '5.8 "  N , 7 ° 40' 17.3"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 10 '5.8 "  N , 7 ° 40' 17.3"  E
Good Hope Pit (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Pit good hope
Location pit Good hope
local community St. Goar, St. Goarshausen
District ( NUTS3 ) Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis, Rhein-Lahn-Kreis
country State of Rhineland-Palatinate
Country Germany

Pit Good Hope is the name of two lead - zinc -Erzgruben in Rhineland-Palatinate on the Middle Rhine , left bank between St.Goar - skins - and Werlau , right bank between St.Goarshausen-Wellmich and - Ehrenthal located.

They dismantled the deposit of the so-called Werlau-Wellmicher Gangzug , which runs over 20 km in length and 2 km in width from the Hunsrück to the Taunus and crosses the Rhine in the process .

history

The pit on the left bank of the Rhine

Hunt in front of the covered Werlauer Schacht (right in the picture)
The pit seen from the Rhine

The Good Hope pit on the left bank of the Rhine, also known as the “Prinzenstein Pit” due to its location below a vantage point, was first mentioned in a document of the properties of the Landgraviate of Hesse on November 7, 1562, where it is already referred to as “ancient”. The Romans had already left traces of mining on the Middle Rhine. Landgrave Constantin of Hessen granted prospecting permission in 1753, in 1756/58 a smelter and a stamping mill was built in the nearby Gründelbachtal, and smelting operations began in 1758. The mine was named "Constantins-Erzlust" in honor of the country's father.

The processing plant was relocated to the entrance of the main gallery directly on the Rhine in 1850 . The Werlauer union (1815–1907), the Bergbau-AG Friedrichssegen (1907–13), then again the Werlauer union (1916–1934) and finally the Stolberger Zink -AG (from 1934 ), who is still the owner of the mine site today.

At that time the Gustav shaft existed with a depth of 270 m, the middle shaft with 490 m and the Christian shaft with 435 m. In 1936 Werlau another was Tagschacht sunk . This shaft, initially called Adolf Hitler shaft, was later renamed Werlauer shaft .

To accommodate the workers and employees of the mine, the Reichsheimstättenamt built a factory settlement on the Rhine in 1937/38 , from which the St. Goar district of Fellen later emerged.

The pit on the right bank of the Rhine

The opening of the basic tunnel between St. Goarshausen-Ehrenthal and -Wellmich

In 1745 ore veins were discovered between Ehrenthal and Prath , which led to the founding of the Sachsenhausen ironworks in 1769. A pounding and washing plant was located near Wellmich. From there the ores were brought to Braubach for further processing .

The owner was initially a private company, from 1804 the rule passed to the Duchy of Nassau , then the mine came into the possession of the Rheinisch-Nassauischen-Bergwerks- und Hütten AG . Operations ceased in 1883 and resumed in 1902 with the opening of the August tunnel. In 1905 the tunnel was opened and the August blind shaft was built. But in 1914 the mine was closed again due to increasing water inflows.

In 1926 Hütten AG was taken over by Stolberger Zink AG, but operations were not resumed for the time being.

In 1934 the mine was renamed "Gute Hope".

Consolidated Good Hope

Processing plant on the left bank of the Rhine near Fellen on the B9. Photo from 1953
The pit seen from the Rhine
Horst civil engineering plant in 1910
Friedrich Wilhelm Stollen 1910

Both mines had been owned by Stolberger Zink since 1934; the actual start of operations under the name " Consolidierte Gute Hoffnung" was around 1937.

From the left bank Christian manhole made began at that time on the -180-m Sole a 3850 m long link the Rhine line in 1942-44 was approximately 136 m propel under the Rhine to rechtsrheinischen August Schacht completed. The ores extracted on the right bank of the Rhine could now be brought under the Rhine to the processing plants on the left bank. Only mountains and rough ore were processed there, the remaining ores were brought to the Silberau processing plant near Bad Ems .

Due to the high volume of groundwater , 2,800 m³ of water on the left bank of the Rhine and 1,800 m³ of water on the right bank of the Rhine had to be swamped daily to keep the system dry.

Once on the left side, on March 16, 1945 dewatering was adjusted due to war-related power outage up to the Rhine route, which lies under the Rheinstrecke part drank from the pit.

On March 18, 1945, the Rhine route was blown up to prevent the Americans from breaking through. Only slightly damaged, it was rebuilt after the end of the war.

On the left bank of the Rhine, the pit was not swamped again after the war. However, since the processing plants and the apartments of most of the workers were on this side, the underground connection was still used to transport the ores mined on the right bank of the Rhine, and the miners still drove from the left bank via the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Stollen, the Christian-Schacht and the Rhine route into the right pit.

At the beginning of the 1950s, the mine experienced a brief period of prosperity. However, due to falling world market prices for ores from 1957, both mines were closed in 1958. In 1959, dismantling began again for a short time on the right-hand side , and the plant was finally closed in 1961.

stollen

Mouth hole of the equivalence tunnel with the remains of a mine building near St. Goarshausen-Wellmich

Overview of the most important tunnels:

Surname Attachment height in m above sea level Length in meters

Wellme

Hundsgraben tunnel 220 500
Equivalence studs 165 1250
August Stollen 90 2060

Ehrenthal

Age studs 200
Central studs 650
Upper tunnel 210 1050
Stollenrösche I / II 310
Deeper studs 125 900
Ehrenthaler tunnel 78.6 600
Ground-tunnel location 76 500

Werlau

Ferdinand tunnel 223 300
Frankenscheider Stollen 240 840
Wolfsbach tunnel 980
Central studs 870
Rhine tunnel 74 870
Friedrich Wilhelm Stollen 98 5970
Christian studs 98 290
Gründelbach tunnel 327 1050

Todays situation

So-called powder tower near St. Goarshausen-Wellmich

Only a few remains are evidence of the former mining operation. Left of Rhine the treatment plants in St. Goar-skins were on the B9 after a long Decaying 1990s up to the foundations demolished, the Gustav-bay in St. Goar-Werlau it came in 2010 to a Schachtverbruch .

The Erzweg hiking trail leads past the covered Werlauer shaft and the retaining wall of a hanging lawn bench . In the further course of the path, in the valley of the Strömerbach, you come across the Brandsweiher, the artificial pond of the pit Gute Hoffnung. Water was dammed up in it, with whose power the heavy stamps of the stamping mill of the processing plant were driven. Further down the valley, a former Steigerhaus bears witness to the remains of the Prinzenstein settlement that has disappeared.

On the right bank of the Rhine, the Wellmich-Prath-Ehrenthal mining and landscape path , a 5 km long educational mining path , was established in 2001 .

There are still some mouth holes or spoil heaps to be found in the woods, at Wellmich there is still a so-called powder tower .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Rhine Valley from Bingen and Rüdesheim to Koblenz. A European cultural landscape. Volume 1. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate, Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-8053-2753-6
  2. ↑ Fellen - History of a District ( Memento from December 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Leopold Ensgraber on the official website of the city of St. Goar
  3. ^ Die Grube Prinzenstein Institute for Historical Regional Studies at the University of Mainz eV
  4. ^ A b c d e Wolfgang David Grube "Consolidierte Gute Hope" near Wellmich-Werlau , in: Bergbau im Rhein-Lahn-Kreis , publisher: Rhein-Lahn District Administration, 1994
  5. ↑ Expert opinion on the assessment of the visual impact of the planned Rhine bridge between Wellmich and Fellen on the integrity of the World Heritage "Upper Middle Rhine Valley" on behalf of MWKEL Rhineland-Palatinate and MBWJK Rhineland-Palatinate
  6. ↑ Hans-Josef Kring, head of the project Mining and Landscape Path Wellmich-Prath-Ehrenthal, Mining in the Bannkreis of the Loreley , April 2009
  7. ↑ On the history of the “Gute Hope” mine, Klaus Brademann, Heimatfreunde Werlau
  8. ↑ The mine shaft in St. Goar-Werlau collapsed ( memento from April 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Reported on the official website of the city of St. Goar
  9. ↑ Through Werlauer Schweiz: Erzweg ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 78 kB) Hiking friends St. Goar @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wanderfreunde-stgoar.de
  10. ^ Mining and Landscape Path Wellmich-Prath-Ehrental Institute for Historical Regional Studies at the University of Mainz eV

See also

Web links

Commons : Grube Gute Hoffnung (Middle Rhine)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files