Unterreichenbach is a town in the district of

Calw Calw (; previously pronounced and sometimes spelled ''Kalb'' accordingly) is a town in the middle of Baden-Württemberg in the south of Germany, capital and largest town of the district Calw. It is located in the Northern Black Forest and is a ...

in the

Northern Black Forest The Northern Black Forest (german: Nordschwarzwald) refers to the northern third of the Black Forest in Germany or, less commonly today, to the northern half of this mountain region. Geography The Northern Black Forest is bounded in the north b ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

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 ...

Geography

Unterreichenbach is in the Nagold River Valley between

and

Pforzheim Pforzheim () is a city of over 125,000 inhabitants in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of Germany. It is known for its jewelry and watch-making industry, and as such has gained the nickname "Goldstadt" ("Golden City") ...

, at an altitude of between 292 und 633 metres.

Subdivisions

Unterreichenbach includes the settlement of Dennjächt as well as Kapfenhardt, which until 1971 was a distinct locality comprising the village of Kapfenhardt and the hamlet of Obere Mühle around the upper mill, which has been in operation since the 14th century. Jagdhütte was delisted as a hamlet in 1971.''Das Land Baden-Württemberg: Amtliche Beschreibung nach Kreisen und Gemeinden''. Volume V ''Regierungsbezirk Karlsruhe Kohlhammer'', Stuttgart:

Kohlhammer Verlag W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart. History Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-law ...

, 1976, . pp. 485–486 Obere Kapfenhardter Mühle

History

The first preserved mention of Unterreichenbach dates to 1375, but there is evidence of a church as early as 1250, and there may have been a settlement as early as 800."Aus der Geschichte des Dorfes", "Unterreichenbach stellt sich vor", Gemeinde
Official town site
The locality was formerly a possession of the Counts of Calw, but in 1603 passed to

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Würt ...

. The first preserved mention of Kapfenhardt, today part of Unterreichenbach, dates to 1260, and it had passed to Württemberg in the early 14th century. Unterreichenbach became an important centre of

timber rafting Timber rafting is a method of transporting felled tree trunks by tying them together to make rafts, which are then drifted or pulled downriver, or across a lake or other body of water. It is arguably, after log driving, the second cheapest mean ...

on the

Enz The Enz is a river flowing north from the Black Forest to the Neckar in Baden-Württemberg. It is 106 km long. Its headstreams – the Little Enz (german: Kleine Enz) and the Great Enz or Big Enz (''Große Enz'') – rise in the Northern B ...

, Nagold and

Würm The Würm is a river in Bavaria, Germany, right tributary of the Amper. The length of the river is , or including the ''Steinbach'', the main feed of Lake Starnberg. It drains the overflow from Lake Starnberg and flows swiftly through the villag ...

after the Pforzheim rafting colony of Au burnt down in the 14th century and many families moved to Unterreichenbach. Felled trees floated down from the Kohler Valley upstream of Calw were reassembled while the men overnighted in inns at the mills in Kapfenhardt and then floated them on, usually to

Bietigheim Bietigheim is a village in the district of Rastatt in Baden-Württemberg in Southwestern Germany. It is located east of the Rhine river and thus the border to France, west of the Black Forest (more precisely the Northern Black Forest), south of ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

but sometimes as far as

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

, before returning overland with their pay. The rafting era came to an end in the early 20th century, replaced by the railways. The community has a museum and a monument to the industry. Beginning in the 14th century, the area was an increasingly popular

spa A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (and sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments, which are also known as balneoth ...

, but this ended with a mid-19th-century avalanche which shut off the ''Gutenbrunnen'' hot spring. However, the area continued to attract tourists, and the mill inns had developed into internationally famous hotels by the Second World War.

Religion

Reichenbach became a

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 or m ...

in 1527. The

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 ...

reached it in 1596, since when it has been primarily

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

Incorporations

* 1924: Dennjächt * 1 June 1972: Kapfenhardt Unterreichenbachbahnhof

Economy and infrastructure

Transport

Unterreichenbach is served by the

Nagold Valley Railway The Nagold Valley Railway (German: ''Nagoldtalbahn'') is a railway line in the northern part of the Black Forest in Germany which links Pforzheim with Horb am Neckar and, for most of its route, follows the valley of the River Nagold. Trains on the ...

, which runs from Pforzheim to

Horb am Neckar Horb am Neckar is a town in the southwest of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river, between Offenburg to the west (about away) and Tübingen to the east (about away). It has around 25,000 inhabitants, of whom ...

Education

Unterreichenbach has a ''Grundschule'' (primary school); older children attend school in neighbouring localities.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Calw (district) Württemberg