Surviving concrete shaft tower of the former Kopalnia Milowice, operated in its final years as Ruch II KWK „Saturn", in the Milowice district of Sosnowiec.
The site in the Milowice district of Sosnowiec marks the location of the former Kopalnia Milowice, which operated under several names from its foundation in 1822 until closure in 1996. In its final years the mine functioned as Ruch II KWK „Saturn", part of the large tri-section colliery centred on Czeladź. Following closure and liquidation, almost all surface buildings on the Milowice site were demolished, with commercial and light industrial premises taking their place.
A surviving concrete shaft tower — one of the last structural remnants of the former colliery — remains on the site. Peak output was recorded in 1972, when KWK Milowice still operated independently, at approximately 1,292,000 tonnes of coal and 76,500 tonnes of bentonite. The mine was notable for extracting bentonite alongside coal, an unusual combination in the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie.
The Milowice shaft complex included shafts named Anna and Aleksander among those active in the mine's final period, as well as earlier shafts Wiktor and Łoboda which were backfilled before closure.
The coal deposit at Milowice, a village with documented roots from the twelfth century and later absorbed as a district of Sosnowiec, was first worked in 1822 when Józef Błeszyński, the then owner of the Milowice estate, opened a colliery under the name „Wiktor". The initial workings were opencast, extracting coal to supply a nearby zinc smelter. Underground extraction was established by the mid-nineteenth century. Ownership passed through several hands: after Józef Błeszyński's death in 1835 to his cousin Ignacy, and in 1838 by purchase to Jan Kanty Kubiczek. From 1855 the mine and the adjacent „Leopold" ironworks were leased to a succession of operators including Abraham Kuznitzky and, from the 1860s, merchant Szymon Kuźnicki of Mysłowice, who sank a new extraction shaft named Aleksander. The heirs of Kuźnicki formed a joint-stock company, Towarzystwo Kopalń i Hut w Milowicach, whose assets passed in 1895 to Towarzystwo Kopalń i Zakładów Hutniczych Sosnowieckich. The mine was renamed Milowice in the 1890s, reverted to „Wiktor" between 1920 and 1926, and was known as Milwitzgrube under German occupation during the Second World War.
An early shaft named Anna, sunk to approximately 58 metres in the mid-nineteenth century, was among the first shafts on the site. The mine was deepened and expanded over subsequent decades. In the interwar period the technically outdated colliery was modernised. During the Second World War German forces disabled the pumping system, but Polish miners kept the pumps running, allowing rapid resumption of production after liberation. Post-war modernisation included shaft deepening and adoption of the longwall mining system. By 1972, the last year of independent operation, KWK Milowice employed 3,171 persons and produced approximately 1,292,000 tonnes of coal alongside 76,503 tonnes of bentonite. The mine was one of the few in the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie to extract bentonite, a material valued in the iron and steel industry.
In 1973 KWK Milowice was merged with KWK Czeladź — operating at Czeladź-Piaski — to form KWK Milowice-Czeladź. In 1976 this combined entity was incorporated into KWK „Czerwona Gwardia" in Czeladź, creating a large three-section colliery. The Milowice section became Ruch II. In 1990 the whole complex was renamed KWK „Saturn". At the time of closure the Milowice/Ruch II shaft complex on ul. Krzysztofa Kamila Baczyńskiego operated two shafts — Anna and Aleksander — with an earlier ventilation shaft at Pogoń (ul. Plonów) also part of the infrastructure. Earlier shafts Wiktor and Łoboda had been backfilled before final closure. Coal extraction at the Milowice site ended in the mid-1990s as part of the wider liquidation of KWK „Saturn", which was formally completed on 31 December 1996.
Following closure and the liquidation of the Saturn enterprise, virtually all surface buildings at the Milowice site were demolished. Commercial premises, warehouses, and light industrial units were constructed on the former colliery footprint. The site was incorporated into the Sosnowiec-Dąbrowa sub-zone of the Katowicka Specjalna Strefa Ekonomiczna. A concrete shaft tower survives as one of the last above-ground remnants of the former mine. A winding wheel from a shaft tower was subsequently installed in a nearby park at the junction of ul. Baczyńskiego and ul. Słoneczna as a memorial to the mining traditions of the Milowice district, though the wheel itself originated from KWK Kazimierz-Juliusz rather than directly from the Milowice workings.