Rock salt mine Wilhelmsglück
The royal Württemberg rock salt mine Wilhelmsglück was a rock salt mine in the area of today's municipality of Rosengarten near Schwäbisch Hall and was developed in the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1824 . The mine was named after King Wilhelm I.
timeline
prehistory
In Germany at the beginning of the 19th century, salt was extracted in so-called salt pans , in which the brine from natural sources was processed into table salt . Despite the high maintenance costs, this method was very productive, which is why King Wilhelm I repeatedly ordered drilling for further brine sources . On September 1, 1815, after successful drilling tests in Jagstfeld, a reliable brine source was put into operation. Half a year later, the first pieces of pure rock salt were found at a depth of 142 m , and the plant was expanded. In memory of his father Friedrich , King Wilhelm named the work Friedrichshall . Spurred on by the success in Jagstfeld and with the aim of systematically dismantling rock salt deposits in Germany, further drilling for rock salt deposits was carried out in the Kingdom of Württemberg . As it turned out in May 1819, these had also been sorely needed, in Friedrichshall water inflows had occurred which made salt mining impossible for the time being.
After several unsuccessful attempts in and around Hall (today Schwäbisch Hall), drillings were carried out near Uttenhofen near Hall in 1822, which soon proved to be successful when a salt seam 6 m thick was discovered at a depth of approx. 100 m. From 1824 the mine named Wilhelmsglück could be put into operation.
Mining
The work in the mine was physically demanding, the miners came into contact with hazardous substances such as saltpeter every day and did not see much of their work, the only lighting they had was a poor oil lamp, the so-called miner's lamp , which they also maintain themselves had to finance what, with a shift wage of 1.40 to 1.60 marks, had a considerable effect on the wallet at 10 to 15 pfennigs per worker.
Despite the poor working conditions, the number of workers grew, in 1847 94 workers were employed, in the heyday of Wilhelmsglück at the end of the 1850s 150 men worked in the mine. At that time, 500 people such as weavers, carters and Kübler were also dependent on Wilhelmsglück as suppliers or service providers. After that, however, the number of workers steadily went downhill.
Explosion accident
In 1879 there was a fateful and decisive event in the history of Wilhelmsglück. On the morning of December 15, the then 80 or so workers gathered to pray, change clothes and warm up every morning in the so-called “shaft room”. Due to the cold, the furnace was very hot and shortly after a few miners had left the room to start their shift, a jet of flame struck the air that would later cost the lives of 21 people: the panicked workers stormed towards the door , none of them had considered in the hustle and bustle that this could only be opened inwards. After opening the door, the rushing helpers were faced with a terrible sight: They found 10 almost completely burned corpses and 14 seriously injured, 11 of whom later died from their injuries. The fire, which was harmless in itself, was quickly extinguished, but now the question arose as to why a harmless fire claimed 26 lives.
The explanation for this was the explosives stored in the shaft room despite the express prohibition, which explodes in contact with fire. How this came about is still unclear, but there are two explanations for this from survivors: The first says that one of the miners lit a comrade when he opened his powder box and just as he was warned to be careful, the jet flame stung emerged. The second theory, which was later revoked, is that a worker placed his explosives bag on the red-hot stove, which then caught fire and blew up.
The hardship of the already poor mining families was great. 13 women had lost their husbands and 48 children had lost their father. In one case a woman lost her husband and her only two sons. After the disaster became known, aid committees started with collection points for donations in kind and money all over the country. A total of over 56,000 marks were collected for the bereaved. Donations were also made by Queen Olga von Württemberg , among others . The dead were buried in the Westheimer Friedhof, where a memorial was erected for them.
End of the mine
After the accident, the situation for the Wilhelmsglück mine became even more difficult, as drilling was carried out again in Jagstfeld and production was restarted in Friedrichshall. The workers who had died in the accident were not replaced, so that in 1888 only 52 men were working in the mine. The Friedrichshall mine, which went into operation in 1859, practically stopped Wilhelmsglück's work because it was located on the navigable Neckar, where work was therefore much more productive for economic reasons. In 1895, 18 people were still working in Wilhelmsglück, in December 1899 the salt production was stopped, the extraction of salt on January 17, 1900. The Wilhelmsglück rock salt mine was closed on February 1, 1900.
It was not possible to keep it open for inspection purposes because the pillar construction of the mine was in some cases no longer very stable. Most of the buildings were demolished and the shafts flooded. Only the mouth hole , the grave of the victims of the accident in the Westheimer Friedhof and of course the small hamlet Wilhelmsglück, which persists despite the closure of the mine and the demolition of most of the buildings, reminds of the mine.
Exposure in 1944
On behalf of the German Wehrmacht, the excavation and recommissioning of the mine began in the spring of 1944, presumably for the storage or possibly also for the production of Wehrmacht goods. Contemporary witnesses helped locate the inclined shaft , which had now grown in , and the excavation began with the help of Russian forced laborers. With the help of powerful pumps, the water with which the shaft had filled up since 1900 was drained over the meadow into the cooker. In the autumn of 1944 there was an incident that luckily went smoothly when an aerial bomb exploded about 200 m from the mine. Nobody was injured, but the residents became even more insecure. After further recommissioning work in the mine, the work was stopped in January 1945, the shafts overflowed again and the site overgrown.
It was not until 1985 that the greens were removed from the mouth, renovated and provided with an iron grating. This picture can still be seen today, no work has been done there since then.
Shafts
The opening times of the Wilhelmsglück salt mine initially comprised three shafts :
- Driving shaft: It was used by miners to get in and out. A long ladder led the workers into the depths of the mine.
- Pump shaft: Fresh water was run over the salt through the pump shaft as the salt was partially dissolved. This resulted in drill holes for the blasting work. The salt water was pumped back up through the same shaft.
- Conveying shaft: The rock salt was transported to the daylight in two vessels using a type of pulley system.
The stairwell was built later. In addition to a staircase for climbing out of the mine, there was also a slide in it , which made it faster and more convenient for the miners, but at the same time more dangerous. At that time the salt was transported out in salt wagons. The new shaft was built in such a way that on Wilhelm's birthday at 9:30 a.m. the sun shone down through the shaft to the salt seam.
building
There were seven operational buildings around the shaft: An official's house, where the administration of the mine was housed; the shaft house in which the explosive devices were assembled and in which the accident in 1879 occurred; the saline solution was stored in the brine reservoir; the workers' tools were made in the mountain forge . There was also a laboratory technician's house, a magazine and a large Göpelhaus (conveyor system).
In addition, there is still the building of the former train station (now an alternative connection point ) on the Waiblingen – Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental railway line above the right slope of the Kocher valley. The Wilhelmsglück Kochersteg , built in 1879 for the workers who came from the right side of the Kochers, has also been preserved.
Mining technology
The pillar construction method was used for dismantling . One started with the 4 m wide and 120 m long main line. After that, a 4 m wide and 120 m long wing location was driven perpendicular to the beginning and end of the same . The ends of the two wing locations were connected by a 4 m wide transverse location, which again ran parallel to the main line. In the tunnel square created in this way, further wing locations with a width of 4 m up to the transverse location were dug parallel to the first two wing locations at a distance of 4 m. Thereupon further 4 m wide transverse locations were drawn parallel to the main route, also at a distance of 4 m, which crossed the inner wing locations. So 4 m × 4 m wide rock pillars remained, on a quarter of the total area of the mine, which secured it against collapse. The remaining three quarters of the area could thus be dismantled without risk. Because the pillars offered more security than necessary, the locations were widened to 6 m in the 1960s.
After the first level at a height of approx. 2 m had been exploited, the place was dug downwards by usually one miner.
A large part of the work consisted of preparing the boreholes for the blasting. The workers hit a chisel drill with a hammer called a hand hammer, which was used to drive the boreholes. From these , the stone that had been shattered by the drill was removed with the dross that looked like a spoon . When the drill hole was deep enough and free, the powder was pressed into it with a pounder. With a so-called space needle, a hole was made in the powder charge into which the detonator was inserted, a rolled-up paper coated with powder pulp with a protruding sulfur thread.
The wedge hoe was used to pre-cut the drill holes and later to remove unevenness. For heavier work, sabots weighing 6-8 pounds were also used.
literature
- Gottlob Jung: The rock salt mine Wilhelmsglück and the last salt works Hall .
- Theo Simon: Salt and salt production in northern Baden-Württemberg . Official news Michelbach / Bilz, May 25, 1996.
- Rock salt mining in Schwäbisch Hall , Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke AG
- Wikisource: Description of the Oberamt Hall
Coordinates: 49 ° 3 ′ 54.7 " N , 9 ° 44 ′ 45.3" E