LWL Museum Nightingale colliery

The Muttental is considered the "cradle of Ruhr mining". Nowhere else in the Ruhr area can the transition from manual to industrial mining be traced more clearly than at the Nachtigall colliery. The historic buildings have had an eventful history: Nachtigall was not only a colliery, but also a brick factory, sandstone quarry and scrap yard. A site that was threatened with final decay - and which today, as the LWL industrial museum, not only reflects its own past, but also the pioneering days of the coal and steel industry in the region. Among other things, visitors can go directly into a real hard coal seam.

The beginnings of Ruhr mining lie in the south of the Ruhr area: in Witten, the hard coal is found in the Hettberg area just a few meters below ground. Farmers were the first to dig for coal there for their own use. The first request for coal production is recorded for the year 1714. The trade in black gold became a business from 1743: At that time, Freiherr Friedrich von Elverfeldt acquired all shares for the "Hettberger Holtze" area. The hard coal was first mined via tunnels that were driven into the mountain; it was not until 1832 that the first civil engineering shaft was sunk on Nachtigall. Thanks to the merger with other small mines in the region, Nachtigall was already the largest mine in the Ruhr area in 1844; Between 1850 and 1860, 300 to 500 people worked at depths of up to 450 meters at the colliery, which has since been sold to Dutch investors.

A good four decades later, however, the mine could no longer keep up with the capabilities of modern large-scale mines. Heavy water inflows, which had been a problem from the start, increasingly caused operational outages; the Witten coal was also not suitable for coking. In 1892, mining was stopped. This was followed by the mine being used as a brickworks from 1897 - and after various "intermediate stages", the facility fell into disrepair.

When the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe took over the Nachtigall mine in 1983 and incorporated it into the Westphalian Industrial Museum (now the LWL Industrial Museum), only the engine house with a steam hoist, an operating building and the boiler house chimney remained. The mine's residential buildings were demolished in 1966. Renovation, restoration and design work were to take until 2003. A visitor mine, regular demonstrations of the historic steam hoist, an extensive permanent and exciting special exhibitions as well as guided tours and events make the LWL Industrial Museum of the Nachtigall mine an exciting place of learning and a popular tourist destination.