Robert Winterhalder

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Robert Winterhalder (born September 26, 1866 ; † 1932 ) was farmer No. 15 of the Schneckenhof (today Gasthaus Zum Schnecken) in the community of Schollach in the Black Forest. He is considered to be the inventor and builder of the world's first ski lift .

Schollach ski lift

The continuous cable car with a towing device for tobogganers and skiers - powered by a water mill - went into operation on February 14, 1908 over a length of 280 m and an altitude difference of 32 m. Between the two rotating wheels at the valley and mountain stations, he stretched an endless rope over five wooden masts, to which pliers with elevator devices for the users were clamped. In order to be pulled by the lift, the skiers and sledders held onto a wooden handle. The lift ended opposite his courtyard, the Scheckenhof ( 47 ° 58 ′ 33.9 ″  N , 8 ° 13 ′ 34.4 ″  E ).

The idea for the cable car came from a self-made cable system that Winterhalder had built between his mill and the courtyard building for the transport of grain and flour.

Patents and exploitation

Patents or utility models were granted to Winterhalder for Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway in the period from 1909 to 1911. For the winter sports exhibition in Triberg he was able to put a longer lift with iron supports and driven by an electric motor into operation, for which he received a gold exhibition medal from Prince Max von Baden . Both lifts were dismantled during the First World War to extract raw materials. Under the circumstances of the time, Winterhalder could not derive any economic success from his patent due to a lack of investors and he sold it.

literature

Elisabeth Essner: Two unusual technical cultural monuments. The "first ski lift in the world" . In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg . tape 10 , no. 2 , 1981, ISSN  0342-0027 , p. 57-60 ( online [accessed September 17, 2012]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The world's first ski lift in Schollach ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 17, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hochschwarzwald.de
  2. ↑ 100 years of the ski lift: Elevator help for asthma sufferers Der Spiegel accessed on December 23, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Winterhalder, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German inventor of the ski lift
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1866
DATE OF DEATH 1932