Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines

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Coordinates: 48°14′51″N 7°11′05″E / 48.2475, 7.18472222222

Administration
Commune of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Saint-Louis church in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines
Location

Country	France
Region	Alsace
Department	Haut-Rhin
Arrondissement	Ribeauvillé
Canton	Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines (chief town)
Intercommunality	Communauté de communes du Val d'Argent
Mayor	Claude Abel (2001-2008)
Statistics
Elevation	326 m–1,210 m (avg. 375 m)
Land area^¹	45.23 km²
Population^² (1999)	5,816
- Density	128/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	68298/ 68160
¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
² Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once.

Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines (German: Markirch) is a commune of the Haut-Rhin département, in France.

1 Geography
2 Distances and localities
3 Saint Marie-aux-Mines's coats of arms
4 History
5 Famous residents
6 Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Mineral Show
7 External links

[edit] Geography

Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines leans in the massif of Vosges and occupies a beautiful valley in V where pours rising Liepvrette. One can access nearby Lorraine by road using the Col de Sainte Marie (772 m) or the Tunnel Maurice-Lemaire (scheduled to reopen, following a major upgrade, in Summer 2008): the Bagenelles Pass (Col des Bagenelles) (903 m) leads to the Col du Bonhomme and to the Road of the Ridges (Route des Crêtes).

The col du Haut de Ribeauvillé (742 m, 2,412 feet) gives a direct access to the administrative center of district, situated in 20 km (12 miles), but the city of Sélestat in the Bas Rhin is only 26 km (16 miles) by the valley and represents a superior center of attention.

Saint Marie-aux-Mines is lined from both directions with high mountains which form the chain of Vosges. The river, Lièpvrette that the former inhabitants named Landbach, that is the provincial brook, separated formerly the city in two parts and in two different parishes, on which the one depended of the diocese of Strasbourg under the arch-presbytery Sélestat's rural chapter.

This central place of the High Valley Canton of the of Lièpvre, in 23 km on the West Sélestat is situated in the crossroads of the Main road 59 which crosses by Col of Sainte Marie-aux-Mines's (772 m, 2,509 feet) and of it D 48 which crosses by in the col of Bagenelles (903 m, 2,935 feet).

Sainte Marie-aux-Mines, called in German Markirch or Mariakirch and in the year II of the Republic free Mountain then Val-aux-Mines is in 384 meters (1,248 feet) above sea level. The Latin documents named it Fanum S.Mariae, S.Maria ad Fodinas.

The valley of Saint Marie-aux-Mines called today Valley of Val d’Argent includes five municipalities: Aubure, Lièpvre, Rombach-le-Franc, and Sainte Croix-aux-Mines. Established in 1790, it was subdivided temporarily, between 1795 and 1802, into two: the one restricted to the city of Sainte Marie–aux-Mines, and the other one including the four other municipalities with its center at Sainte Croix-aux-Mines.

The valley of Sainte Marie–aux-Mines was a part of the District of Colmar, to pass in 1871 into that of Ribeauvillé.

[edit] Distances and localities

Altenberg, Adelspach, Bourgonde, Brifosse, the coast of Échery, Échery, Faunoux, Fenarupt, Fertrupt (formerly called Fordelbach), haute Broque, Haycot, Hergauchamps, the Petite Lièpvre ( Kleinleberau), Mongoutte, the Petit Haut, Rauenthal, Saint Philippe, Saint Pierre sur l’Hâte, Surlattes ( Zillhardt)

[edit] Saint Marie-aux-Mines's coats of arms

In Armorial of the Majority of Alsace, Sainte Marie-aux-Mines's blazon is described in the following way : of Azure in one Our Lady of silver putting its feet on a golden mountain. On intoxicates him notepapers official of the city hall we see weapons quite other : they are formed with the weapons of Lorraine, Ribeaupierre's weapons and heraldic sign of the minors and can blazoner so : party of money in three ecus of mouths which is of Ribeaupierre, and gold in the band of mouths charged with three alérions of silvers which is from Lorraine, with there abyss, an ecu of sand in two hammers of minors of silver put in long necklace. These weapons very well consisted in the heraldic point of view and reproduced in color on the notepaper of the city hall of front war, evoke perfectly the geographic and political situation of the city such as it was until the Revolution, as well as the industry which made its reputation. Saint Marie-aux-Mines's coats of arms varied. Those that attributed Louis XIV's general armorial bearings to the Alsatian part were talking : " Of azure in one Our Lady of silver putting feet on a golden mountain ". The side of Lorraine which belonged to the Lords de Ribeaupierre and the side of Lorraine of the city having been reunited under the Revolution, Saint Marie-aux-Mines adopted in the XIXth century a particular ecu left for silver in the three badges of mouths ( Ribeaupierre) and azure in the cross of Lorraine of silver. The current coats of arms granted on July 28, 1892 call back at the same moment this double origin and the mines which Sainte Marie-aux-Mines had to formerly her celebrity. The city of Holy Marie is a holder of the Croix de guerre 1914-1918 with palm (quotation in the order of the Army of ]]November 2]], [[1921])) and of the Croix de guerre 1939-1945 with star of vermeil (quotation in the order of the armed force).

[edit] History

Sainte Marie-aux-Mines owes her celebrity to her mines. All the evolution is so conditioned in the exploitation of mines. These mines would have been discovered with Gallo-Romains which had already begun the exploitation of mines at the beginning of 2nd or 3rd century after Jesus Christ. This hypothesis had been suggested, but was very fast abandoned for lack of serious documents. Robert Forrer put handed her in value in 1927 by basing itself on the presence of antimony in the currencies of and the valley of Lièpvre of which depended more or less, antimony, which according to him, could come only of Sainte Marie-aux-Mines's region, which would have so known mines from this time. It is then the black hole until the Xth century when according to the monk of the abbey of whom lived in 13th century, a named monk Blidulphe based Echéry's convent, situated right by the current Sainte Marie-aux-Mines. The monks noticed soon that the valley abounded in mine fertility. The monks of Echéry are soon threatened in their possessions and their rights by the family of Echery which builds in the XIIIth century, the castle of Hoh-Eckerich. This family eventually monopolized the mines) which the monks exploited.

The first mention of the city dates from the time of Thierry II, duke of Lorraine, who returned in 1078 to Lièpvre's convent Sainte Marie-aux-Mines's tithes and that of the Saint Blaise's nearby village. These possessions made left for Lièpvre's convent which had been deprived of him in 1052 by Gérard d'Alsace, his father. Gérard d'Alsace descended from the family whomreigned over Alsace in the VIIth century, the name of which is connected with that of Etichon which was also the father of Sainte Odile. The predecessor of Gérard d' Alsace, Adalbert, was the son of another Gérard who had married Gisèle, niece of the emperor. The new hereditary duke of Lorraine, Gérard d'Alsace, belonged so to an illustrious lineage solidly provided in Alsace, that is in the southwest of the realm of Germania. Links between the Lorraine, realm of Germania and Holy Empire became close. It was supported by the emperor Henry III because Etichonides had always served loyally Empire and had supplied him the devoted civil servants. It is very likely that Gérard d' Alsace had knowledge of the rich mines of the Valley of Lièpvre, because according to Schoepflin it is question from 963 of the time of Gérard, bishop of Toul (963-994) of the silvermines of the Valley of Lièpvre fame of which exceeded Lorraine. In this time it is already question of the tithe which have to pay the monks of the Valley of Lièpvre. The bishop Gérard bishop of Toul named in 963 will be canonized in 1051 by whom was his 5th successor on the seat of Toul's bishop's palace under the name of Léon de Dabo. In the collection Evangelienbuch, poem in popular language finished towards 865 and dedicated to Louis the German, Wissembourg's Otfrid praises the country of Franks, for which he praises, in four towards, the mineralogical wealth of the region vosgienne. Monk of Wissembourg, convent is which possesses properties to the South of the former duchy, not far from Sélestat, and appears to have shown for this region a very deep interest. (1048-1070), duke of Lorraine from 1048 and nephew of (1047-1048) appears he so disturbed with these mines which are on the lands of his ancestors, Etichonides. In 1055, this duke frees Saint-Dié's abbey of the custody of the bishops of Toul and proclaims himself dedicated with this abbey. It charges dearly this protection. So the chapter loses gradually its rights to preserve only a moral and spiritual authority. Sainte Marie-aux-Mines, levy in Latin Sancte Maria ad Fodinas, and in German Markirch, owes her name and her origin to exploitation of mines and to the church of Sainte Marie Madeleine who was the parish of the part of Lorraine and who was built in 1757. The big altar was under the invocation of this saint and the two others collateral under the invocation of the Virgin Mary and other one of Holy Sébastien. The city of Saint Marie-aux-Mines appears for the first time in 1317.

U.S. soldier Eddie Slovik was executed by firing squad for desertion near the town on January 31, 1945.

[edit] Famous residents

Laure Diebold, (1915-1965), Compagnon de la Libération

[edit] Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Mineral Show

One of the Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines old streets full of mineral and fossil stands during the Euro-mineral

The Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Mineral Show, also known as Euro Mineral, is an international fair on nature-related arts and mining products that takes place in this alsacian village, whose economy was formerly focused on regional mining and mineral deposits.

The Mineral Show dates back, like the Mineralientage (Munich, Germany), in the early 1960, when Francois Lehmann organized a small mineral exhibition. In a couple of years the fair becomes a tourist attraction in the area and actually many collectors from Italy, France and Germany are going there. The actual appearance of the Mineral Show started in 1966 when it consolidated the first weekend of July as a fair dates. In 1981 the team led by Michel Schwab gives a professional point of view to the fair. Since 1992, the fair takes place the last week of June. The fair hosts today more than 900 exhibitors from 60 countries.

Over the course of a limited town area, filling the small Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines old town streets, are distributed hundreds of stands exhibiting their minerals, fossils, gems and elaborated stones. Some village buildings, like the Theatre or the School, among others, are also filled with exhibitors. During the four-day fair (the first two days are for professionals only) also carried out parallel events such as conferences, workshops and visits to mines from this valley, known as Val d'Argent (Silver Valley).

Currently the site of the exhibition is divided into the Euro Mineral and Euro Gem sections, with specialized dealers. However messy the layout of the streets brings a style in which you could find anywhere the piece you were looking for.