Lauterbach () is a village in the municipality of

Brixen im Thale Brixen (; , ; or , ) is a town and commune in South Tyrol, northern Italy, located about north of Bolzano. Geography Brixen is the third-largest city and oldest town in the province, with a population of nearly twenty-three thousand. It is loc ...

in Austria with 714 inhabitants (as of 15 May 2001). It is the largest and most populous village in the municipality.

History and geography

The settlement of Lauterbach is located at about above sea level, east of the centre of Brixen. Its name comes from the mountain stream of ''Lauterbach'' that has significantly affected the development of the settlement for centuries. In 1812, the village had around 30 houses with 167 inhabitants. After the Second World War, there was twice that number of houses; in recent years, there have been over 200 houses, with around 900 inhabitants. The reason for the rapid growth in population in recent decades is due, on the one hand, to land prices, and on the other to the farmers who lived there. Because, in the main, only small farmers lived in Lauterbach, only full-time farmers lived in the village centre of Brixen around the church. As a result, these farmers and the church, too, were less prepared to sell land to settlers than the many

smallholding A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technolo ...

farmers in Lauterbach. As a result, a proper village centre never developed. 1946: severe weather came down from the

Hohe Salve The Hohe Salve is a well-known mountain located between Kufstein, Wörgl and Kitzbühel in the Austrian state of Tyrol. It is part of the Kitzbühel Alps and is also nicknamed ''the Rigi of the Tyrol''. Its summit is high,flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture, civi ...

. The Lauterbach covered the federal road and the railway track. Rail and road traffic were held up for hours. 1957: the houses in Brixen and Lauterbach were connected to a new water mains that came from the Gaisberg. 1971: serious flooding occurred again in Brixen. The Lauterbach broke its banks again. Work parties laboured into the early hours of the morning in order to prevent further flooding. 1975: flood warnings in the village of Lauterbach. The newly built

road bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

over the Lauterbach was entirely ripped away. The floods cause major damage.

References

Sources: * Sebastian Posch (ed.): Brixen im Thale 788-1988. Ein Heimatbuch. Innsbruck: Universitätsverlag Wagner, 1988. .

External links

*
www.geschichte-tirol.com Brixen im Thale

Municipal homepage of Brixen im Thale
{{authority control Kitzbühel Alps Cities and towns in Kitzbühel District