Klazienaveen is a town to the southeast of Emmen in the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

province of

Drenthe Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Nov ...

. It is located approx from the German border. Klazienaveen started as a

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...

colony owned by Willem Albert Scholten. It has been named after Klaassien Sluis, the wife of Scholten.

History

In 1874,

Willem Albert Scholten Willem Albert Scholten (6 October 1819 – 1 May 1895) was a Dutch industrialist and landowner. He established the potato starch factory Eureka in Foxhol which laid the foundation of an industrial empire. Scholten would own 24 factories in Europe. ...

bought the Smeulveen to exploit the

. In 1890, Scholten offered the skipper Jan Adde Hazewinkel a flag as the first person to transport the peat. In 1899, a village appeared along the canal. In 1903, Scholten's son Jan Evert renamed Smeulveen and the village Klazienaveen after his mother Klaassien Sluis. It is one of the two villages in the Netherlands named after a non-royal woman. In 1932, it was home to 2,327 people. In 1921, the Purit factory opened and produces Norit ( activated carbon). On 23 March 1945, the factory was bombed by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

causing eight deaths among the factory workers. The clock in the engine room stopped and has remained as a reminder. Since 2012, it is owned by

Cabot Corporation Cabot Corporation is an American specialty chemicals and performance materials company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The company operates in over 20 countries with 36 manufacturing plants, eight research and development facilities and ...

. After World War II, Klazienaveen started expanding rapidly. In the 1960s,

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...

cultivation started in Klazienaveen. The town can reached via the A37 motorway.

Notable people

Ruben Roosken Ruben Roosken (born 2 March 2000) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Eerste Divisie club Heracles Almelo. Club career Emmen The son of a Dutch father and a Luso-Angolan mother, Roosken played as a youth for VV Klazien ...

(born 2000), footballer * Hanja Maij-Weggen (born 1943), politician and former Queen's Commissioner of North Brabant

Gallery

File:Kerk-Henricus.jpg, Church in Klazienaveen File:De Veenarbeider2 Bert Kiewit Klazienaveen.jpg, Peat worker by Bert Kiewit File:Noritfabriek Klazienaveen.jpg, Norit factory File:Klazienaveen winkelcentrum 't Schip foto21 2016-09-25 16.01.jpg, Shopping mall

References

External links

*
Local news site
(in Dutch) {{Authority control Populated places in Drenthe Emmen, Netherlands 1899 establishments in the Netherlands