Geislingen an der Steige

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geislingen an der Steige or Geislingen (Steige) is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is part of the district of Göppingen and has 27,943 inhabitants. Its geographical coordinates are 48° 36' N, 9° 48' E.

Although the area had settlements since the bronze age, Geislingen was founded by the counts of Helfenstein as a transit collection station on the important commercial route between the Rhine valley and the Mediterranean. The fortified Helfenstein castle existed since 1100. “Giselingen” was first mentioned as “civitas” in a document dated 1237. From 1396 through 1802, Geislingen was owned by the free and imperial city of Ulm on the Danube. In 1803 Ulm and Geislingen became part of Bavaria, but in a land exchange were incorporated into the kingdom of Württemberg in 1810.

Industrialization started with the arrival of the railroad and the construction of the railroad “Steige” (1847-1850), a steep incline of rail and road to the plateau of the Schwäbische Alb (Swabian Jura). The leading industrial enterprise is the Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik (WMF) founded in 1852, a world renowned manufacturer of goods for kitchen and table.