Zeche Fürst Leopold — Schacht II Dorsten · Nordrhein-Westfalen · Germany

The history of the site begins with successful exploratory drilling undertaken by the Fürstlich Salm-Salm'sche Generalverwaltung in 1902, which struck coal at approximately 600 m depth in the field designated Fürst Leopold II. In 1899–1902 earlier trial borings had confirmed that coal could be economically extracted north of the River Lippe. In 1906 the two private individuals Emil Tilmann of Dortmund and Victor Weidtman of Aachen purchased the 4.4 km² Bergeigentum from the Fürst Salm-Salm at Anholt for 750,000 Mark and sold it immediately to the Gelsenkirchener Bergwerksgesellschaft Consolidation in Gelsenkirchen.

The concession fields I and III were granted to the Gewerkschaften Fürst Leopold I, II, and III in 1906, and Consolidation simultaneously acquired fields IV through X. In 1910 all ten fields were consolidated into the 21.2 km² Grubenfeld Fürst Leopold I. On 14 November 1910 shaft sinking began on Schacht 1; work on Schacht 2 followed six months later. The shafts were sunk using the Gefrierverfahren (ground-freezing method), having learned from the problems with quicksand that had caused difficulties at the neighbouring Zeche Baldur. In December 1911 the field was again divided for tax reasons into the fields Fürst Leopold (16.1 km²) and Fürst Leopold Fortsetzung (6.1 km²).

Schächte 1 and 2 reached their preliminary final depth of 690 m and 748 m respectively, almost simultaneously in May 1912, at which point they struck the coal-bearing seams. The first coal was raised on 19 January 1913 by a workforce of 626, and by the end of that year 39,236 tonnes had been produced. The headframe over Schacht 2 — a single-storey Einstrebengerüst of the Promnitz type — was erected in 1912–13.

The western winding engine for Schacht 2 was built in 1914 at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hütte in Mülheim an der Ruhr. By 1914 annual output had risen to 120,000 tonnes; in 1915 the shafts reached their final depths of 895 m (Schacht 1) and 876 m (Schacht 2). In November 1918 the Hoesch AG acquired the Kuxe of the Gewerkschaft Fürst Leopold for 21.75 million Mark.

From December 1918 to April 1919 the Dorstener miners struck for higher wages and shorter shifts; the strike ended in improved pay and conditions. In 1920 Hoesch AG entered into cooperation with the Köln-Neuessener Bergwerksverein, owner of the neighbouring Zeche Baldur. In 1923 Belgian troops occupied the colliery during the Ruhr occupation.

In 1925 a workforce of 2,100 was producing 510,000 tonnes annually. From 1926 underground connection work was begun between Fürst Leopold on its second level and Zeche Baldur on its third level at approximately 700 m depth, anticipating the formal merger that would follow. In 1927 work began on the colliery's own canal port on the Wesel-Datteln-Kanal, which entered service in 1930.

The onset of the Great Depression in 1929–30 severely affected output; in July 1930 the Gewerkschaft Trier (Zeche Baldur) was initially transferred to the Köln-Neuessener Bergwerksverein, and a few months later the Hoesch AG and the Köln-Neuessener Bergwerksverein merged to form the Hoesch-Köln-Neuessener AG für Bergbau und Hüttenbetrieb. Baldur was formally shut as a producing colliery in 1931 and incorporated into Fürst Leopold; the underground connection was completed with a Durchschlag in June 1931, and the combined colliery was thereafter known as Fürst Leopold/Baldur. The shafts of Baldur continued to serve as ventilation shafts.

In the best years some 5,000 workers above and below ground were producing up to 12,000 tonnes of coal daily, with a peak coalfield of up to 96 km². After the post-war reorganisation of German heavy industry under Allied supervision, Fürst Leopold/Baldur passed to the Hoesch Bergwerks-AG to supply the Westfalenhütte in Dortmund. Underground timber work in the stopes was replaced by steel supports and mechanical coal-cutters and ploughs were introduced.

A high-pressure power station was erected in the early 1950s to replace the ageing boiler house. In 1955 the on-site brickworks, which had been erected in 1914 to produce material for the workers' housing colony, was replaced by a pressure gasification plant for the production of strong gas, primarily for the Essener Ruhrgas AG. In 1959 the Dorstener colliery was incorporated into the reconstituted Hoesch AG.

In June 1970, within the wider reorganisation of Ruhr mining under the Ruhrkohle AG, the management decided to merge the Schachtanlagen Fürst Leopold/Baldur and Wulfen into the Bergwerk Fürst Leopold/Wulfen. The Zeche Wulfen had been sunk from 1958 and had been in production from 1964. In 1968 the colliery passed to the Ruhrkohle AG.

From 1974 deeper exploration boreholes in the Wulfen building area identified further coal seams, averting a planned closure of the Wulfen installation in 1975. Underground connection works between Fürst Leopold (3rd level, −838 m NN) and Wulfen (2nd level, −990 m NN) began in January 1975, the approximately 7.5 km of connecting roadway being driven in six and a half years. In 1976 Schacht 1 received a new headframe.

In July 1981 the last blast of the connection was fired. From 1982 the combined underground workings of both installations were unified, the total building area of the Verbundbergwerk reaching 104.3 km². The entire output, totalling around 8,000 tonnes daily, was wound at Schacht Fürst Leopold 1.

In 1983 a Rundhalle (circular raw coal blending and stacking installation) was brought into service to homogenise the raw coal output. In 1988 Schacht 1 was converted to a Zentralschacht with a modern steel box headframe (Stahlkastengerüst) and four-rope winding (Vierseilförderung). In 1997 the Schachtanlage Fürst Leopold/Wulfen achieved its highest ever annual output of 2.4 million tonnes.

In April 1998 Fürst Leopold/Wulfen merged with the Gelsenkirchener Zeche Westerholt to form the Bergwerk Lippe; the building area of the new combined mine covered 148 km². The merger was accompanied by strong protests. The last coal at Fürst Leopold was raised on 17 August 2001 and the colliery closed.

After the closure, Schächte Wulfen 1 and 2 and Schacht Baldur 1 were backfilled; the headframes over Wulfen 1 and 2 were dismantled in 2002. Fürst Leopold Schächte 1 and 2 remained open for ventilation and mine-water management as an outlying installation of the Bergwerk Lippe. Until end 2017 Schacht 2 served as the site of the Zentrale Wasserhaltung of the RAG Aktiengesellschaft for the wider Ruhr region.

The headframe over Schacht 1 was demolished on 6 April 2008 along with large parts of the remaining surface installations. In 2019 Schacht 1 was converted into a water well tube and Schacht 2 was backfilled to a depth of 670 m. Demolition of non-protected surface buildings was completed around end 2011.

The headframe over Schacht 2 — the Einstrebengerüst of 1912–13 — was placed under the protection of the Stiftung Industriedenkmalpflege und Geschichtskultur in 2015, having previously been threatened with demolition by the private investor developing the wider site when it was judged to have no commercial value. The surviving historic buildings around the former Lohnhalle were adapted for cultural use and operate today as the CreativQuartier Fürst Leopold, comprising artists' studios, gallery spaces, a Bergbauverein information centre, gastronomic facilities with a beer garden, and event spaces. The site is proposed for inclusion as an Ankerpunkt of the Route der Industriekultur.