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History
Salt made this place famous. The white treasure was industrially won from the saline spring water, the brine, over many centuries. The salt springs were mentioned in an interest listing dating from 1446, for the first time. Ludewig Knott was the first so called “Pfänner”1 in Salzhausen. He worked with two salt pans and boiled with three “Söder”2 the precious salt out of the brine.
Salt was a source of income and therefore this technology was made more effective and more advanced. The gradation of the brine made everything even more effective. The concentration of the salt was increased by evaporation. The brine trickled through a layer of black thorn brushwood and was caught in a large basin in concentrated form, then the rest of the water was evaporated in the salt pans and the salt was won.
The medicinal properties of the “Salzhäuser” water were discovered at the beginning of the 19th century. First bathhouses were built. From 1824 to 1826 the Grand Duke Ludewig I. gave the instruction to build the ”Kurhaus” and a bathhouse and gave the instruction to create the park. The saline water became more and more a medicine. By the middle of the 19th century the industrial salt production was stopped.
As much energy was necessary for the salt extraction, the manager of the saline at that time, Johann Wilhelm Langsdorf, gave the instruction to create a technical work of art. 42 metres difference in altitude had to be overcome by a system of leverages, more than two kilometres long, to transmit the energy of a water wheel in Kohden to Salzhausen. Some remains of this so called “Stangenkunst”, which was a technical masterpiece, can be admired in the Spa Gardens till today. A model is displayed in the local museum in Nidda.