Puits Couriot Saint-Étienne · Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes · France

The Bassin de Saint-Étienne — stretching some fifty kilometres from Firminy to Rive-de-Gier — has been exploited for coal since the Middle Ages, with the earliest documented citation of a coal mine dating to 1257. The site of the future puits Couriot was occupied from 1850 onwards by the puits Châtelus, sunk by the Compagnie des Mines de la Loire. In 1870 a second shaft, puits Châtelus II, was sunk.

In 1887 a firedamp explosion in the workings between Châtelus I and the puits Culatte killed 79 miners; Châtelus I was subsequently closed. The Société anonyme des Mines de la Loire acquired the concession and the stricken site in June 1893. Châtelus I was modernised and restarted in 1899.

In April 1907 the decision was taken to sink a new and much larger shaft — Châtelus III — with a diameter of 5.10 metres, approximately twice the width of the earlier puits, intended to reach coal at 700 metres depth. The fonçage began in real earnest at the end of March 1908. The shaft reached 721 metres in March 1914, at which point the engineers decided not to deepen it further; the final depth was 727.25 metres.

The metal chevalement, one of the first in the stéphanois basin to be built in metal, was assembled nearby and installed over the shaft opening. Work on the shaft was interrupted by the outbreak of war in August 1914. Châtelus III was renamed puits Couriot in 1917 in honour of Henry Couriot, who had become president of the company in 1911; he died in 1924.

The recettes were completed in 1918 and 1919, and the puits Couriot was brought into full service at the end of 1919. With over 1,000 miners after the First World War, Couriot was the deepest and widest shaft in the stéphanois basin, and could process 300,000 tonnes of coal per year. Alongside the shaft, a complex of industrial installations was assembled: a central electricity station, a battery of coke ovens, a gas distillation plant, and a steel works.

A major workers' cité, the cité de Chavassieux, was progressively built two kilometres away. Between 1920 and 1924 the site acquired a fine washery, electric locomotives, and a second compressor building. The S.A. des Mines de la Loire was reorganised in 1929 when the Houillères de Saint-Étienne were taken over in liquidation.

In 1928 puits Châtelus I was rebuilt with a new concrete chevalement and became a service shaft; puits Châtelus II was abandoned and backfilled. By 1934 Couriot concentrated the remontée of coal from the deep seams. In 1936 major works raised the shaft's capacity to 900,000 tonnes per year — nearly a quarter of the total production of the stéphanois basin — and the extraction machine was modernised with a new Koepe pulley system.

Couriot thus became a puits de concentration in the fullest sense. The first crassier began to form from 1938, growing at more than 15 metres per year; it exceeded 150 metres in height by the late 1940s. In March 1941 Marshal Pétain visited the site and delivered a speech announcing the main lines of his Charte du travail.

Following the Liberation, Couriot played a crucial role in France's reconstruction through the Bataille du charbon. The nationalisation of the coal industry in 1946 brought the site under the management of the Charbonnages de France. A mining strike in October 1948 brought the garde mobile to occupy the site.

The central electricity station and the battery of coke ovens ceased operation in the early 1950s. A second crassier was begun from 1947; both crassiers became prominent landmarks of the stéphanois skyline. Extraction at Couriot ceased in 1965 as production was concentrated at the puits Pigeot in the Ondaine valley.

The washeries were halted in 1965 and the concrete chevalement of Châtelus I was demolished in 1966. Puits Couriot was definitively closed on 5 April 1973, when the cables were cut; the last team descended to extinguish the pumps ascended via the puits Rochefort. On that date Couriot was the last active shaft on the commune of Saint-Étienne.

The last shaft in the entire stéphanois basin, the puits Pigeot at La Ricamarie, closed in 1983. After closure, former mining employees worked to preserve what remained of the installations and lobbied industrialists and elected officials for the creation of a museum. The first stone of the museum was laid in 1988 by the mayor of Saint-Étienne.

The Musée de la mine opened on the site in 1991, presenting the technical history of the mine. The site was inscribed as a monument historique by arrêté of 22 April 2010; the site was then classified as a monument historique by arrêté of 26 April 2011, covering the crassiers and their parcel, the facades and rooflines of all buildings, all other buildings in their entirety, the technical installations and machines including the chevalement, the monument aux morts, the water basins, and the entrance to the fendue des passerelles. The Parc Joseph Sanguedolce, designed by landscape architect Michel Corajoud, was delivered in 2013, and three new exhibition spaces were inaugurated in December 2014.

The preserved site includes the 35-metre metal chevalement, the bâtiment de la machine d'extraction, the compressor room, the lampisteries, the lavabos ouvriers (workers' washrooms), the administrative offices, the monument aux morts, and the two crassiers. The site covers 15 hectares, or 30 hectares including the crassiers.