The Carreau Wendel Museum is the

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

of the Wendel-Vuillemin coal pit, in

Petite-Rosselle Petite-Rosselle (; ; Palatine German: ''Klänrossle'') is a commune in the Moselle department of the Grand Est region in north-eastern France. The commune is separated from neighbouring Großrosseln to its west by the small river Rossel, whi ...

on the

Saarland The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and ...

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gr ...

border (

Saar-Warndt coal mining basin Saar-Warndt coal mining basin is an area of Germany and France. It has been shaped by two centuries of coal extraction from the start of the 19th century to the start of 21st century; and it represents a significant period in the history of Euro ...

). Though often in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, since 1945 it has been in

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...

department

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The museum is an Anchor point on the

European Route of Industrial Heritage The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is a tourist route of the most important industrial heritage sites in Europe. This is a tourism industry information initiative to present a network of industrial heritage sites across Europe. The a ...

History

The Wendel 1 pit was closed in 1989, Wendel 2 in 1992 and Wendel 3 in 2001. The first piece of coal was mined in Petite-Rosselle in June 1856, at the Saint-Charles pit. These pits are in France but surrounded on three sides by the national border with Germany. Several pits were dug between 1862 and 1889: Wendel 1, Wendel 2, Vuillemin 1 and Vuillemin 2. Emile Vuillemin was the consulting engineer for

Charles de Wendel Charles de Wendel (13 December 1809 – 15 April 1870) was a French steel manufacturer in Lorraine and a deputy in the French legislative assembly. Origins The de Wendel family can be traced back to Jean Wendel of Bruges, who married Marie de Wan ...

and Georges Hainguerlot's company- ''Compagnie Anonyme des Mines de Stiring''. The coal produced was primarily used to fire the Wendel steelworks. The company became - ''Les Petits-fils de François de Wendel et Cie'' in 1889. After the Second World War, the government required the industry to triple the Lorraine coal production within ten years. In the 1946 nationalising, the Wendel assets were assigned to public company ''Houillères du bassin de Lorraine''. The Wendel 3 pit was dug in 1952, and in 1958 was equipped with the new wash house 3. The Wendel 1 and 2 pits were modernised and equipped with new headframes. After 1960, the coal recession hit: the company modernised wash house 1–2 in 1962 by creating a new module on top of the former wash house, adapted to the existing equipment. Operations and investment continued up until 1986 when central activities ceased. Some infrastructure continued to be used up until 1989 serving other pits in the Wendel franchise.

Museum

The museum is presented in several section. The simple tour shows the life of the miner and the hazardous working conditions. There is then an opportunity to take a guide tour down the workings seeing the machinery current when the last deep mine in France closed in 2004. There is an AM 100 heading machine, G210 electro-hydraulic loader, Electra 2000 shearer and ANF winning machine, roof supports etc. La Mine Wendel
accessed 24-January 2015.

References

;Notes ;Footnotes

External links

Museum Website

Les puits miniers du bassin houiller lorrain
(fr) Museums in Moselle (department) Mining museums in France European Route of Industrial Heritage Anchor Points {{France-museum-stub