Henri Sarolea

Henri Sarolea

Henri Sarolea (born January 18, 1844 in Maastricht , † September 12, 1900 in Heerlen ) was an important Dutch railway engineer and also co-founder of the Heerlen Oranje-Nassau mining company.

Vita

After a few years in colonial service in the Dutch East Indies ( Indonesia ), Sarolea moved to Heerlen for the last years of his life. At that time Heerlen was still a rural village. At that time there were no railway connections to surrounding larger cities such as Maastricht, Sittard, Aachen or even to Liège. At best, you could travel by train from Simpelveld ( Aachen - Maastricht line ). Sarolea was 42 years old when in 1886 he made plans for the construction of a railway connection between Herzogenrath , Heerlen and Sittardcreated. However, the Dutch government was still hesitant to build a railway in the furthest corner of the country from a national perspective. But after a long tug of war, Sarolea finally managed to prevail. On January 1, 1896, the railway line officially opened and opened to traffic.

With the construction of the railway, an important step was taken towards the industrialization of the region and the boom in mining due to the significantly more efficient transport options for coal sales. This is the only way to understand the strong growth of the mines in Heerlen and the surrounding area, which began as a result.

The problem of coal transport also affected Sarolea personally, as he and the German brothers Carl Honigmann and Friedrich Honigmann had founded the mining company Oranje-Nassau in Heerlen a few years earlier, the first Oranje-Nassau I mine to extract anthracite soon after the railway line opened recorded, which served as domestic and boiler coal.

Sarolea could only briefly enjoy the success of his last life achievements. He died on September 12, 1900 in Heerlen as a result of a long-term heart condition of a heart attack. He was 56 years old.

Trivia

One of the most important shopping streets in Heerlen is named after Henri Sarolea. The Saroleastraat (or Sarool as they say in Heerlen) leads from the main station to the inner-city business center of Heerlen.

literature

• R. Bisscheroux: Sarolea en de gebroeders Honigmann: grondleggers the modern steenkolenmijnbouw in Nederland 1888–1898. Amsterdam 1994, pp. 21-35.
• JTJ Jamar: De Nederlandsche Zuiderspoorwegmaatschappij met liquidatie bedreigd. In: Het Land van Heerle. Volume 36, 1986, pp. 29-32.
• JTJ Jamar: De totstandkoming van de spoorlijn Sittard-Heerlen-Herzogenrath. In: Het Land van Heerle. Volume 40, 1990, pp. 45-54.
• o. V .: Club Aachener Casino . Festschrift, 2 volumes. passim . (regarding Honigmann)