Nachtigall Coal Mine

1 - According to legend, a swineherd once lit a wood fire to keep warm by the Muttenbach, a small tributary of the Ruhr. By evening, the wood had burned down. But when he returned the next day, the fire was still burning. Some black stones lying all around had caught fire. They were coal. 2 - We don’t know whether it really happened this way. But coal had been mined in the area south of the Ruhr for centuries. It was found close to the surface. At first, people simply dug holes in the ground, known as Pingen. When these ran dry or filled with groundwater, they dug elsewhere. 3 - A coal mine called “Nachtigall” was already mentioned in 1645. Horizontal tunnels were dug into the hillside here to reach the coal. About 180 years ago, people began mining coal from greater depths. They drove vertical shafts downwards, from which horizontal tunnels branched off. With the help of steam engines, miners could bring the coal to the surface. The engines also powered pumps that drained water from the shafts. 4 - The “Nachtigall” mine in Witten was once one of the largest collieries in the Ruhr region. Some shafts reached depths of almost 800 metres. In 1858, 450 miners worked here. They mined almost 100,000 tonnes of coal a year. 5 - The colliery got its own railway connection as early as 1829: the Muttentalbahn. It was a narrow-gauge railway operated by horses. One horse pulled up to six coal-laden wagons to the Ruhr, where the coal was loaded onto ships. 6 - But water kept seeping into the shafts, hindering mining. The collieries further north were more productive. So in 1892, Nachtigall colliery and its main shaft, “Hercules”, were closed. 7 - A brickworks was later established on the site. To supply it with fuel, coal mining resumed on a small scale. In 1964, the brickworks also closed, and the buildings fell into disrepair. Finally, in 2003, the Nachtigall Colliery Industrial Museum opened here. 8 - The entrance to the old “Hercules” shaft was uncovered, and visitors can see a steam engine and winding wheel in the winding house. Visitors can also learn about the backbreaking work of miners in the Nachtigal tunnel, which dates back to the early days of coal mining. 9 - A replica of a Ruhr-Aak is also on display. These ships were once used to transport coal. They had a shallow draught, were about 35 m long and 5 m wide. They could drift with the current or use the wind with a simple sail, but most of the time they had to be pulled by people or horses walking along the riverbank.