Would you like to know how our picturesque mountain town was created? Get started below to learn what you didn't know.
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Would you like to know how our picturesque mountain town was created? Get started below to learn what you didn't know.
Until the 16th century, there was only impenetrable forest in the places where Špindlerův Mlýn is today. The first people to venture into the impenetrable interior of the mountains were prospectors - ore and precious stone seekers - followed by miners who began to mine the ores discovered. First iron ore and then silver. Mining and ironmongering flourished under Christopher von Gendorf, the royal chief governor and mining expert, who bought the Vrchlabi estate at the foot of the mountains below the Elbe River. He built the largest enterprise of its kind in the then Bohemia of the Vrchlabi Ironworks.
More informationMining and ore processing consumed a huge amount of wood, and therefore Hetman Gendorf called here experts from the Alpine countries for its mining and river navigation. Alpine miners and lumbermen settled here and began building a farmhouse in the mountains, called a shack. Because they had experience from their original home how to breed cattle in seemingly inhospitable mountains, they began farming in the clearings. The clearings became meadows and pastures, and thus formed typical meadow enclaves in the middle of forests, as we can see here to this day. Building management became increasingly important as mineral wealth and timber declined. Prospectors and miners were gradually replaced by collectors of medicinal plants and builders. The greatest boom of mountain buildings occurred, with the advent of tourism since the second half of the 19th century.
Even in the 18th century there were only scattered small settlements on the territory of today's Špindlerův Mlýn, whose names are still preserved in the names of city districts, such as Svatý Petr, Bedřichov or Labská. The importance of today's city center grew when the miller Špindler moved his mill from St. Peter here in 1765, which pulled water from the melting snow. The new mill was named, as was customary, by its name - Spindleruv Mlyn. The fact that the name of this mill became the name of a non-existent municipality was the result of an official chime.
The cause was the church. At the end of the 18th century there was only an old chapel, where worship took place only three times a year. The spiritual life of the mountaineers was taken care of by the Augustinian monastery in Vrchlabí, where at that time there was no road yet, only a poorly accessible road. Moreover, after the church reforms of Emperor Joseph II. the number of monks from Vrchlabi significantly decreased. The highlanders therefore began to strive to establish their own church and parish. One of the most active was the miller from Špindlerův Mlýn, where the highlanders also wrote down the humiliated requests of the emperors. Their signatures were stated - written in Spindleruv Mlyn (Spindlermühle in German). And because in German-speaking countries similar names are often used in towns and villages, there was a mistake and the permission to build a church in Špindlerův Mlýn was returned. Citizens preferred to adopt the new name and began to build, rather than argue with imperial officials.
It was not the only official mistake in this case. On the imperial decree from the name Spindlermühle stray somewhere letter "r". The locals, however, have become accustomed to the new, albeit wrong name, and efforts in the 20th century to correct the name and to return the unfortunate "r" back have met with irritated resistance from the population.
Local builders and local gamekeepers occasionally provided shelter and entertainment for occasional pilgrims who visited these parts. However, the beginning of tourism in Špindlerův Mlýn dates back to 1865, when four tourists from Wrocław stayed here. They liked it so much that they started to come here regularly with their friends.
Locals soon recognized the tourist potential of this place, began to expand the sheds and build excursions. One of the most popular was the route through the Dívčí lávky (Labe Footbridge) - Labské doly to Labské waterfall and Labská bouda. At its own expense, it was built in 1871 by the owner of the Jilemnice estate, Count Jan Harrach, after whom it is also named.
On the other side of the Dievčí footbridge, upstream of the White Elbe, in 1889-1891 the owner of the Vrchlabí estate, Countess Aloisie Černín-Morzínová, established another way, which was named in honor of the first chairman of the Austrian Krkonoše Association of Vrchlabi Dean Wenzel Weber. The construction of the road from Vrchlabí in 1872 contributed significantly to the higher number of visitors. New professions were created, such as guides and porters of the Krkonoše Mountains. On a wooden backpack, tourists could not only carry their luggage to the hills, but also themselves.
Initially, the tourist season took place mainly in summer. But already in the second decade of the 19th century in the eastern Giant Mountains (from Pomezní Buda to Kowar) held the first commercial downhill rides. These were sledges with large "horns" at the front, which the timber brought from the Alps and on which they initially collected the wood from the mountains in winter. The new attraction quickly spread to Spindleruv Mlyn. It was driven mainly from Petrovka and Spindlerovka (from there the toboggan run continues today), but also from other buildings on the hills. In 1909, a hydroelectric power plant was built at the Earl of the Sawmill, and the following year, an electric sledge lift was set up. Sledding on sports or sledges dominated the winter fun at the end of the 19th century.
When the Kraus brothers appeared on Petrovka in 1880 with the first skis in the Krkonoše Mountains, nobody thought that they were at the birth of a new era. It took nearly twenty years for the fashion fad to become a practical means of transport and a new sport. Contributed, among other things, Vrchlabi manufacturer Guido Rotter, who in 1899 donated skis to all mountain schools in Vrchlabi, and Count Jan Harrach, who equipped them with their foresters. Already in 1900 there was an exercise in Špindlerův Mlýn troops in their use. Today, the offer of winter fun in Spindleruv Mlyn is much more varied.