The Pulverturm in

Johanngeorgenstadt Johanngeorgenstadt () is a mining town in Saxony’s Ore Mountains, 17 km south of Aue, and 27 km northwest of Karlovy Vary. It lies in the district of Erzgebirgskreis, on the border with the Czech Republic, is a state-recognized health ...

was a

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

used by the

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

authorities for storing

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). ...

for the Neu Leipziger Glück pit. It was built in 1798 in a sparsely settled region outside the town on the spoil heap of the Gotthelf Schaller pit on ''

Eibenstock Eibenstock is a town in the western Ore Mountains, in the Erzgebirgskreis, Saxony, Germany. It is situated near the river Mulde. Geography Eibenstock has the following constituent communities: Eibenstock, Blauenthal, Wolfsgrün, Neidhardtsthal ...

er Straße'' by the Neu Leipziger Glück Union. In 1828 it was sold for 105

Reichstaler The ''Reichsthaler'' (; modern spelling Reichstaler), or more specifically the ''Reichsthaler specie'', was a standard thaler silver coin introduced by the Holy Roman Empire in 1566 for use in all German states, minted in various versions for the ...

as a mining area

powder tower A powder tower (german: Pulverturm), occasionally also powder house (''Pulverhaus''), was a building used by the military or by mining companies, frequently a tower, to store gunpowder or, later, explosives. They were common until the 20th centur ...

. The purchase price was advanced by the Royal Stolln, who also took over its repair. For every hundredweight of powder stored, the mines were then charged a taler towards the repayment of the advance. In 1864, the powder tower was sold to the district council for 50 thalers. Due to the rising population of Johanngeorgenstadt, the

stands today in the town centre, not far from a new housing area built in the mid-1980s, which today bears the name ''Am Pulverturm''. The powder tower is a witness to the mining history and is under monument protection.

External links

Information about the Pulverturm on the home page for Johanngeorgenstadt
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johanngeorgenstadt, Pulverturm Round towers

18th-century architecture Mining in the Ore Mountains Heritage sites in Saxony Johanngeorgenstadt