Vahlberger Zug mine, Rothemühle

In the vicinity of Rothemühle is the Vahlberger Zug, on which the Hauptlöh and Vahlberg mines once built. The corridor means, which are worth building over a length of approx. 400 m, reached a thickness of 10 m in places.The Vahlberg mine was initially owned by the Drolshagen monastery, which had to sell the mine again in 1790. The mine changed hands more frequently in the period that followed. In 1851 the first machine shaft in the entire Siegerland-Wied district was sunk here. Nevertheless, the mine had to be closed for the time being in 1856 due to sales difficulties. It was only after the Finnentrop-Olpe railway line was built in 1875 that the Hauptlöh and Vahlberg mines began operating jointly under the name of Vahlberger Zug. A new machine shaft reached its final depth of during the First World War

360 m. At that time almost 500 miners were employed in the mine.

In 1921 the mine was finally shut down. The Vahlberger Zug mine is one of the most famous mineral discovery sites in the southern Sauerland. Beautiful rhodochrosite and malachite levels are particularly well known. There are also good specimens of “brown glass head” (goethite), bulbous and leafy crystallized lepidocrocite and spherical quartz concretions, the so-called “mountain eggs”, more frequently in the collections. The middle of the vein led to a depth of 160 m brown iron stone, then increasingly siderite with quartz as the main vein. Galena and chalcopyrite collapsed.