Lauta is a village in the Saxon town of

Marienberg Marienberg is a town in Germany. It was the district capital of the Mittlerer Erzgebirgskreis (Central Ore Mountains district) in the southern part of Saxony, and since August 2008 it has been part of the new district of Erzgebirgskreis. As of ...

in the German district of

Erzgebirgskreis Erzgebirgskreis is a district ('' Kreis'') in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is named after the Erzgebirge ("Ore Mountains"), a mountain range in the southern part of the district which forms part of the Germany–Czech Republic border. I ...

Geography

Lauta lies about 2 kilometres northwest of Marienberg in the Ore Mountains. Southwest of Lauta lies the high Dreibrüderhöhe, southeast of the village is the high Lautaer Höhe.
Until the opening of the Marienberg ring road in 2007 the B 174 federal road from Chemnitz to Reitzenhain passed through the village. Since then it has run past Lauta to the north and east. There is a road to Lauterbach, the ''

Kreisstraße A Kreisstraße (literally: "district road" or "county road") is a class of road in Germany. It carries traffic between the towns and villages within a '' Kreis'' or district or between two neighbouring districts. In importance, the ''Kreisstraße ...

'' 8131.

History

Lauta was first mentioned in 1434 as ''die Lute''. Mining started in 1523 with ''Bauernzeche'' pit on the ore vein '' Bauer Morgengang''. Following the Protestant

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

Lauta became part of Lauterbach

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

in 1539, and on 1 October 1875 it became part of Marienberg parish. By way of reciprocation, some mine buildings near Rittersberg and two mine buildings which used to belong to Niederlauterstein, together with 27 inhabitants, were transferred to Lauterbach parish in 1897. A school was built in 1766. According to

August Schumann Friedrich August Gottlob Schumann (March 2, 1773 – August 10, 1826) was a German bookseller and publisher. His best-known work is the 18-volume Lexicon of Saxony, which was completed after his death by Albert Schiffner. He wrote ''Junker K ...

, Lauta had 230 inhabitants in 1818. Today's B 174 was routed through Lauta in 1833. A rare mineral that was found in 1881 in ''Rudolph-Schacht'' mine was examined by the Freiberg mineralogist A. Frenzel and was named ''

Lautite Lautite is a rare mineral belonging to the class of sulfides and sulfosalts with the general formula CuAsS. It is orthorhombic and is known to form up to 2.3 cm long prismatic or flat crystals. It is also found as grains or masses. First i ...

''. Silver mining in Rudolph-Schacht ceased in 1899. A

horse gin A horse mill is a mill, sometimes used in conjunction with a watermill or windmill, that uses a horse engine as the power source. Any milling process can be powered in this way, but the most frequent use of animal power in horse mills was for grin ...

was in operation there between 1838 and 1877, and a faithful replica of it was built in the 1990s. The associated visitor centre houses an exhibition on "Mining in the Marienberg mining district". The mining landscape near Lauta has been selected to support the application of

Ore Mountain Mining Region The Ore Mountain Mining Region (officially Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region; german: Montanregion Erzgebirge, cs, Montanregion Krušné hory) is an industrial heritage landscape, over 800 years old, in the border region of the Ore Mountai ...

for the status of a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

. In 1883 an 18-metre-high tower was erected on the nearby Dreibrüderhöhe and named "Prinzeß-Marien-Turm" in 1884. This tower was pulled down in 1977, and replaced in 1994. Lauta was connected to the electrical distribution network in 1925. Between 1929 and 1935 Rudolph-Schacht mine was reopened as a water supply. The water is fed into the Neunzehnhain II reservoir which supplies the city of Chemnitz. On 1 January 1994 Lauta was merged with Marienberg.''Gebietsänderungen ab 1. Januar 1994 bis 31. Dezember 1994'', Statistisches Landesamt des Freistaats Sachsen, p. 11
retrieved 2 July 2015

References

External links

* {{Authority control Former municipalities in Saxony Villages in the Ore Mountains Erzgebirgskreis Marienberg