Salt production facilities

It is hard for us to imagine today, but centuries ago, extracting salt was a long and arduous process. In this region, salt was produced almost exclusively in salt works. Brine was laboriously extracted from the ground and boiled down in huge pans until salt crystals formed, which then had to be left to dry for days before being packed.

In Bad Sulza, we are fortunate to have the most extensive surviving facilities and equipment for evaporative salt production. Here you can discover how evaporative salt was once produced from brine extracted from the ground. You can do this either on a walk along the ‘Brine and Salt’ themed trail or on a guided walk.

Artificial moat

As you stroll through the spa gardens, you are bound to notice the little stream that winds its way through them. The so-called Kunstgraben was constructed in 1608 by the salt works of the time – in other words, it was man-made, hence its name. It was used to harness water power to drive what were then five water wheels. These, in turn, used a technically ingenious system of wooden linkages to operate pumping systems at various shafts with their brine springs, such as the Kunstgraben, Beust and Leopold shafts. In addition, the wooden linkages also drove the pumps that transported the brine through the three graduation towers.

Mine workers’ hut with a hand-operated winch

If you follow the winding path past the waterwheel up to Goethe Garden House II, you will automatically come to what is known locally in Bad Sulza as the ‘Göpelhaus’. This is actually the shaft house, which houses the hand-operated winch. Put simply, a ‘Kaue’ is a structure built over the mouth of a spring. The upper (more recent) artificial spring located here was drilled in 1885. The built-in hand-operated winch is a very rare feature. It was used to lower the pipes for brine extraction into the depths or to pull them up for repair purposes.

The hand-operated winch is still fully functional today.

Entrance to the Kunstgraben shaft

Below the shaft headroom lies the entrance to the Kunstgraben shaft, which leads to the openings of the lower (older) and upper (newer) Kunstgraben springs. The older spring was drilled in 1835 to a depth of 203 metres and produced brine with a concentration of 8%. It was replaced by the newer Kunstgraben spring, which was drilled in 1885. With a drilling depth of 433 metres, it supplied a 10% brine solution to the salt works until 1948. After that, the brine from this spring was used for bathing facilities in the spa establishments.

Art angle or art frame

The pump house was originally located above the mouth, i.e. the entrance, to the Kunstgraben shaft. Driven by the power of the water wheel and connected to a wooden linkage system, the pumps were set in motion to draw brine from the depths. Once electric pumps had taken over these tasks, the pump house was placed in front of the tunnel entrance as an exhibit.

Wheel house with water wheel

The wheelhouse was built after 1835 in connection with the drilling of the older artificial canal spring. Water from the artificial canal was used to power the wooden waterwheel housed within it. The waterwheel drove two wooden pump and field linkages, which in turn drove the pumps in the artificial canal shaft and the linkage in the Beust shaft on the other side of the Ilm.

And even if it is still a long way off, the plan is for a waterwheel to turn in the Radstube once again at some point. Until then, however, a great deal of water will no doubt flow down the Ilm.

Turning dock

Built in 1841 on the right bank of the Ilm, the turning dock served to change the direction of the pump linkage driven by the water wheel, which set the pumps in the Beust shaft in motion.

Entrance to the Beust shaft

In 1752, Baron von Beust acquired the Sulza salt works, which at that time lay almost entirely fallow. Von Beust led the salt works to a period of prosperity, so that the spring located here was named after him. Although the spring originates in Bad Sulza’s Herlitzberg, the entrance to the well, drilled between 1841 and 1848, is located beneath the road next to the railway embankment. From a depth of 398 metres, it yielded brine with a concentration of 18%. Today, the shaft can only be viewed from the outside.

Graduation house „Louise“

The only graduation tower still standing today was also once part of the salt works and was once an ‘industrial building’. In total, the brine was passed through three graduation towers – as they were known at the time – four times before being sent for boiling. The brine passed through the ‘Louise’ graduation tower, which still stands today, twice. This was because only ‘Louise’ had a roof even back then, thus preventing contamination from trees or birds.

From the mid-19th century onwards, the graduation tower was increasingly used for spa purposes. With the drilling of wells containing saturated brine in Darnstedt, the Bad Sulza graduation towers then became redundant.

Solar tank

In order to produce a consistent quantity and quality of evaporated salt, it was necessary to maintain the evaporation process day and night. As there was not always sufficient brine of the required concentration available, despite the presence of numerous brine springs and several graduation towers, a two-storey brine reservoir was constructed as early as 1780; this structure, which remains fully intact to this day, was extended once again in 1810. The brine, which was pumped here via wooden pipes from the graduation towers, was stored in two huge wooden basins that extend across almost the entire floor area of the building on both storeys. Today, the reservoir is a real treasure, as it is the only original of its kind in the whole of Europe and is particularly remarkable due to its construction.

Siedehaus Pan V

Directly opposite the brine reservoir stands the only one of the nine former boiling houses still in existence. In 1885–86, it was the only one to be fitted with a free-standing chimney. This is where the actual salt boiling process took place, during which the brine was boiled – that is, simmered – initially using wood and later coal, until salt crystals settled at the bottom of the huge, square metal pans. The wet salt was then pulled towards the side of the pans using long poles and thrown onto the roof of the pan with shovels. The final drying took place in the drying room, known as the ‘Darre’. With a bit of luck, during the summer months you can watch our salt boilers practising this traditional craft at the demonstration boiling facility.

Salt Works and Local History Museum

This building was constructed in 1848 as the ‘Salineschenke’, an inn for the saltworks labourers, salt workers and other saltworks staff. Over the course of its eventful history, it served as a boys’ school, a residential building and a boarding house, before the Bad Sulza Saltworks and Local History Museum moved in here in 1954. Here, visitors can learn all about the eventful history of the saltworks and the town’s salt production. The jewel in the museum’s crown is the historic convent hall, which served as a meeting and reception room for the salt works management. Everything has been preserved in its original state – from the furniture and paintings to the porcelain. The fully preserved 19th-century pharmacy explains what a pill maker did. And the rear section of the museum shows how great-great-grandmothers used to do the laundry.

Darnstedt’s brine drilling rigs

Although located in the neighbouring village of Darnstedt, the brine drilling towers there are still considered part of the Sulza salt works. A deep borehole drilled between 1893 and 1896, reaching a depth of 880 metres, brought to the surface saturated brine with a 27% salinity. A water wheel and a field pump system were installed to operate the pumps, and the brine was pumped into the Bad Sulza brine reservoir via a 2-kilometre pipeline. In 1937, a second well was drilled in Darnstedt, as the riser pipes of the first well had become clogged and broken due to the aggressive nature of the brine. Fortunately for the saltworks management, the brine layer of the old spring was encountered at a depth of 385 metres. From that point on, all other springs in Bad Sulza lost their significance, as their brine would have had to be diluted. The spring in Darnstedt supplied the brine for evaporated salt production in Bad Sulza until 1967. After that, evaporated salt production was discontinued entirely.