Marstal powder factory
The Marstal powder factory is a former powder factory near the Glatt , south of Gossau SG in Switzerland .
history
The property on which the powder factory was located is below the Gossau- Herisau cantonal road at the height of the Fennhof. It includes a factory, two residential and production buildings and a pond. The factory goes back to three Löhrer brothers from Waldkirch : Johannes Löhrer worked as a powder maker in Salzburg from 1806 . He returned in 1819 and founded a powder mill in St. Josephen. In his place, his brother Jakob Anton Löhrer went to Salzburg in 1818 and also worked as a powder maker.
The third brother, Josef Löhrer, started his apprenticeship with his brother Johannes in 1819 and then founded his powder factory in Marstal, which was then known as Hohlbleiche. At that time he already had experience with explosions, as they should often occur in the Marstal. According to his report, the powder mill in the Burentobel in St. Josephen, where he was working as a servant at the time, flew on «30. The month of fallow in 1821 », and in the years up to 1835 another six explosions occurred there.
Josef Löhrer married Anna Maria Krapf in 1830, who came from St. Josephen, and in 1831 he moved to the Zellersmühle.
Sicilian rods of sulfur were used for powder production , as well as coal from various plants and chemically purified Chile nitrate . However, Josef Löhrer did not use the saltpeter mined in the saltpeter cave near the ruins of Helfenberg , but instead imported Egyptian or East Indian saltpeter via Venice or Marseille .
The powder business was profitable, as many road building explosions were carried out in the 1830s. In 1832 alone, Löhrer produced 43 quintals of gunpowder using 13 fathoms of alder wood . In the following year production increased to 130 quintals, in 1824 it produced 114 quintals and for 1845 24 quintals of target powder and 183 quintals of explosive powder are occupied. In the following years, too, Löhrer's production continued to increase. In 1837 he had a new powder pound built for 2000 guilders ; he figured it could work 400 pounds a day.
The powder kegs were transported on horse-drawn wagons. Löhrer delivered powder to Toggenburg , St. Gallen , Chur , Langwies , Samedan , Grono and Roveredo . The freight prices were high, which was probably also related to the dangerousness of the cargo. In Josef Löhrer's company, just like his brother Johannes, accidents occurred again and again: In 1842 the employee Franz Anton Frank died of burns that he sustained in an explosion on November 24th, 1843, as von Löhrer wrote in his ledger noted, "the upper stamp in the morning 7.45 am with 150 pounds of powder in the air", and on August 23, 1844, according to the Appenzeller Zeitung , the whole powder mill blew up - "for the sixth time". In this accident, the side walls and roof of the factory building were torn apart. Josef Löhrer and an assistant were killed. Löhrer left behind his wife and three minor children, the employee a wife.
After the last explosion, the Marstal powder factory was sold. It was advertised - probably because of Löhrer's business connections in Swabian - among others in the Stuttgarter Allgemeine Zeitung ; The description in the advertisement shows that the property was also used for timber and fruit was planted, and the usability of hydropower was also pointed out. Johannes Löhrer finally bought the property that his brother had left and built a factory owner's villa on the property, but did not use it for long: when the newly founded state took over the powder shelf in 1848, powder production by private individuals ended. The house and factory building in Marstal became the property of the Swiss Confederation in 1850 for 11,300 guilders. The factory was initially still used for powder production and accidents did not fail to materialize. On October 9, 1856, two people were killed in an explosion, another explosion on May 13, 1860 claimed no lives, and in 1865 both people and buildings were damaged.
In 1874 powder production in the Marstal was stopped. Instead, cardboard boxes were manufactured by the Zeller family on the site of the former powder factory until the 1950s. Even the first member of the Zeller family to take over the facility would have liked to build an electricity station on the Glatt, but this was not actually implemented.
Part of the plant was owned by Hug AG in 1955, which produced soap flakes there and operated a forwarding agency. From 1961, Novag from Zurich began producing cosmetic articles in the former powder factory, and from 1979 advertising panels were sprayed there at short notice, but this could not be carried out for long due to a lack of water protection. The buildings are now used by various businesses, the rock band Piero Nero rehearses on the remote property, a hobby blacksmith makes bells in the former powder factory and the agricultural areas are cultivated by the Fennhof farmers.
The former Hohlbleiche has only been referred to as Marstal since the sale of the site by Johannes Löhrer. He also gave the Burentobel in St. Josephen, where he had his own powder factory, a warlike name: he called it Bellonental .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Von Gossau-Flawil, Espelweiher: An unknown jewel nearby , in: Mitteilungsblatt 4/2017 der Wanderfreunde Ostschweiz, p. 7 f. ( Digitized version )
- ↑ "On November 24th, my upper stomp blew up." The eventful and not harmless history of the Marstal an der Glatt factory , in: Glattblatt 2009 , p. 10 f. ( Digitized version )
- ↑ cf. also Marstal and Bellonatal . In ortsnames.ch . Swiss Idioticon .
Coordinates: 47 ° 24 '5.1 " N , 9 ° 15' 10.5" E ; CH1903: seven hundred and thirty-six thousand nine hundred forty-five / 251649