Johann Urban Kym

Johann Urban Kym (born July 9, 1805 in Möhlin ; † April 14, 1889 in Möhlin) was a Swiss entrepreneur and politician .

biography

Johann Urban Kym (pronunciation [ kχiːm ]) was born in 1805 as the second eldest of three sons of Johann Urban Kym and Anna Maria Theresia Kym. Waldmeyer born. Already in 1605 Jacob Kym, an ancestor of Johann Urban Kym, was mentioned as "the old miller" by Möhlin. For centuries, the Kym family, who had local citizenship in Möhlin, had built up a miller dynasty in the Fricktal village . When the estate was divided after the death of his father, Johann Urban Kym received the upper mill and the associated sawmill in the Stadelbach district.

After attending the community school, Johann Urban Kym received private lessons from a pastor in Rheinfelden . He learned the French language in Neuchâtel and then attended the forestry school in Karlsruhe . He then continued his forestry studies at the University of Berlin and also completed a degree in engineering and economics . He was also interested in philosophy .

After completing his studies, he returned to Möhlin and entered practical and economic life. As the owner of a mill and a sawmill, Johann Urban Kym initially traded in flour , grain and wood . He later expanded his trading business to include plaster of paris , hay and wine and went into wholesale. As a wholesaler and moneylender at a time when there was no banking system in rural areas, Johann Urban Kym soon made a significant fortune. In 1876 he founded the savings and loan association Möhlin , which also took over Kyms bank customers. Johann Urban Kym was Chairman of the Board of Directors of this village bank until his death.

The discovery of a common salt store in 1836 in Schweizerhalle ( canton Basel-Landschaft ), around 15 km away , brought Johann Urban Kym to the idea of ​​looking for salt stores further east on Aargau soil. An initial application for a license was rejected by the Aargau government. Even before the decision on a second application, Johann Urban Kym began drilling for salt in Kaiseraugst on the Ergolz . On September 18, 1841, he finally reached the salt store at a depth of 138 meters, whereby the yield proved to be not very productive. Shortly afterwards he founded the company Kym & Cie.

On May 22, 1844, much larger salt deposits were discovered east of Rheinfelden by further drilling by another company. Almost a month later, on June 20, 1844, this company received the concession for the Rheinfelden salt works. The new competition from Rheinfelden prompted Kym to drill further east in the Kleingrüt area near Riburg , directly on the border with Möhlin, for further salt deposits. However, the license application for salt production was again rejected. A petition from the municipality of Möhlin and a petition from citizens from all over the canton ultimately led the government to give in. On August 31, 1846, the Grand Council granted the concession for the Riburg salt works . With this decision, Switzerland became independent of other countries with regard to the need for table salt. At the beginning of 1848, the Riburg salt works opened. Just two years later, the two competing salt works Rheinfelden and Riburg merged, whereupon Johann Urban Kym became Chairman of the Board of Directors of the new company.

In March 1855, the Möhlin community had to deal with the question of railway construction for the first time . Johann Urban Kym knew how to successfully get involved in the community's participation in the construction costs of the Bözbergbahn . After long negotiations between the affected municipalities, landowners, the canton and the railway company, the route was finally determined on February 24, 1871. Johann Urban Kym played a key role in the decision on the route in the area around Möhlin. So he wanted the railway line to run as north as possible and thus near the Riburg salt works. This route led to severe interventions for Möhlin. The new railway line ran over a high dam through the middle of the village and from then on separated Untermöhlin from Riburg. In order to evenly distribute the gradient of the railway line, a deep cut had to be dug through the Möhliner field. Today it is hard to imagine what the Möhlin site would look like if one of the other three variants had been implemented.

Johann Urban Kym was also politically active. From 1830 to 1832 he was district judge in Aargau and from 1832 to 1838 forest inspector for the city of Rheinfelden. From 1846 to 1852 and from 1868 to 1872 Johann Urbann Kym was a member of the Aargau Grand Council .

literature

• Karl Schib : History of the village Möhlin , Buchdruckerei Karl Augustin, Thayngen 1985 (2nd edition).

Web links

• Johann Urban Kym: Kym, Johann Urban. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .