 |
|
|
Traditional industrial activities
|
| |
Economic development in Vosges du Nord and Pfälzerwald
was based on wood, glass, earthenware, iron and water.
The forest was the key to industry in the area. It remained
in its natural state until relatively recently, being
exploited industrially for the first time in the 18th
C. Wood was exported by floating it down the river to
the shipyards in Holland. Most of the forest was used
then as fuel by the factories, glassworks and blast furnaces
that set up there.
 |
| Crystal glass ©
SYCOPARC |
 |
Today's factories still exploit the local resources; saw-milling
is still an important economic sector. A number of different
companies make parquet, wooden crates, school furniture,
broom handles, sawn wooden beams... Local sandstone and
fern-ash are used in the Meisenthal, St Louis-les-Bitche
and Wingen-sur Moder glass factories, and iron ore in
De Dietrich's Reichshoffen factories and by Gienanth throughout
Pfälzerwald.
 |
| Saw-milling © SYCOPARC |
|
Sandstone is still worked by a number of companies in
the area. Vosges du Nord is the most important area for
the extraction and cutting of sandstone for the building
industry in France. On the other hand, the extraction
of variegated sandstone has been declining steadily in
Pfälzerwald.
 |
A stonemason working
Tieffenbach sandstone
© SYCOPARC |
|
|
|
|
