Sol- and thermal bath Wilhelmsquelle

The former spa hotel (1914)

Rheumatism Center Ruhr Area (2013)

The brine and thermal bath Wilhelmsquelle or brine and thermal bath Wanne-Eickel was a bath for rheumatic diseases in Herne-Wanne . As a brine and thermal bath, it was the last bath in the Ruhr area . The resulting rheumatism center in the Ruhr area is a specialist hospital for rheumatic diseases in Herne .

history

On July 3, 1891, miners dug a thermal brine-carrying crevice on the 4th level of the Pluto colliery at a depth of 606 meters. The water jet shot out of the rock at two cubic meters per minute. According to various sources, the temperature of the brine was between 28 ° C and 42 ° C. The "Bergbau-Aktien-Gesellschaft 'Pluto'" submitted to the responsible Oberbergamt Dortmund on May 8, 1893 a recommendation for the presence of brine. When the Wilhelmsquelle field was awarded by the mining authorities , the colliery received the right to extract the brine.

The building contractor August Franke found out about the brine deposits and built the privately run bathing establishment "Sol- und Thermalbad Wilhelmsquelle", which was opened on August 10, 1894. To supply the bathing establishment, Franke had signed a supply contract with the colliery and laid an approximately two-kilometer pipeline from the colliery to today's Kurhausstrasse. Before that, Franke had built a spa hotel on the corner of Viktoriastraße / Göbenstraße (today Hauptstraße / Kurhausstraße). On January 1, 1898, the bath was transferred to a stock company. In 1901 it had grown from the former twelve bath cells to 47 bath cells, separated into men and women, and a children's section. Over 35,000 baths were given, mainly to miners.

In 1918 the source of supply to the bathing establishment dried up, but a new source was struck at the Pluto colliery at a depth of over 800 meters. In 1920 the municipality of Wanne acquired the share package and became the new owner. In June 1942, the Sol- und Thermalbad AG was merged with the electricity supply Wanne-Eickel to form Stadtwerke Wanne-Eickel , which merged into Stadtwerke AG Herne after the regional reform of 1975.

The spa hotel and the bathing establishment were completely destroyed in bombing raids in 1944 and 1945. According to plans by the Wanne-Eickeler architect Willi Wallmeier , construction of the new pool began in October 1948, and the opening took place on October 3, 1949. The spa hotel was not renewed.

According to an analysis by the Fresenius Institute in 1970, the water in the pool can be described as brine in accordance with the “Regulations for health resorts, recreation areas and healing fountains”. However , Wanne-Eickel was not allowed to call itself Bad Wanne-Eickel because other criteria were not met.

After the colliery stopped its coal production in 1976, the water containing the thermal brine could no longer be used since 1981 due to the changed dewatering in the closed mining. The Stadtwerke Herne therefore concluded a contract in 1982 with the city of Oberhausen, which operated the Raffelberg salt bath , for the supply of brine for the baths in Herne.

The brine and thermal baths were transferred to church sponsorship in 1987. Since then it has been operated as the "Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet" of the St. Josefs Hospital.

Today's rheumatism center

Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet in Claudiusstrasse

In 2014 the Rheumazentrum moved from the former location “Am Solbad” to a new building on Claudiusstrasse. Today it belongs to the St. Elisabeth Group - Katholische Kliniken Rhein-Ruhr , a church group of hospitals and clinics. With 130 beds and 10,000 patients annually, it is one of the largest rheumatoid clinics in Germany. The architectural design comes from Krampe Schmidt Architects from Bochum.