Grube Camphausen Quierschied · Saarland · Germany

The history of Grube Camphausen begins with the sinking of the first two deep shafts — known as Fischbachschächte I and II — in the Fischbachtal in 1871. During the sinking of these shafts, broken pottery, bones and ash were found, identified as the remains of a Celtic ritual site. A third shaft was added in 1874. That same year, the Prussian finance minister Otto von Camphausen (1812–1896) visited the mine, and the colliery was named after him on that occasion. The entire mine site was made available on lease from the forestry administration.

Regular coal production was established from October 1877, supported by the construction of a colliery railway. The opening of the Fischbachtalbahn in 1879 substantially improved the mine's marketing possibilities. On 17 and 18 March 1885, during the sinking of a further shaft, a severe firedamp and coal dust explosion occurred, killing 180 miners and injuring a further 30. After a fire in the winding engine house in September 1895, the entire operation was temporarily shut down and the workforce was distributed to neighbouring collieries. In 1886 Westschacht II had been driven; it later received the name Franziska I in 1920.

In 1908 Schacht IV was sunk. The confined conditions of the colliery site made a conventional steel headframe impracticable, and the decision was taken to construct a reinforced-concrete hammerkopf winding tower. The tower was designed by Oberingenieur Karl Walter Mautner (1881–1949) and built by the Saarbrücken branch of Carl Brandt Eisenbetonbau between July 1910 and September 1912. It stands 38.70 metres above ground level on four reinforced-concrete support piers, each extending eleven metres below the surface. The structure has five storeys with a pyramidal base and a rectangular upper tower section with two projecting bays on the narrow sides housing the electrical equipment, giving it the characteristic hammerkopf form. The top storey houses two AEG electric winding machines with Koepe driving wheels, each rated at 1,740 kilowatts. The shaft reached a depth of 640 metres and had a daily output capacity of over 2,200 tonnes. It was the world's first reinforced-concrete winding tower and remains the oldest surviving example of its type in Germany. From 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the mine passed without compensation into public ownership.

In 1964 and 1965 a Ludwigsstollen, 5,595 metres in length, was built to transport coal from Camphausen to Luisenthal. A further accident on 16 February 1986 killed seven miners. In 1988 the decision was taken to close the mine by 1990. On 1 January 1990 Grube Camphausen lost its independence and became part of the new Verbundbergwerk Reden-Camphausen together with Grube Reden. The final coal draw took place on 12 November 1990. After closure, all shafts except one ventilation shaft were filled. Part of the site was converted to a commercial and business area. The spoil heap Lydia, which had begun as a conical heap and been reshaped into a plateau between 1979 and 1982, was comprehensively recontouring between 2003 and 2006 due to the risk of it slipping onto adjacent railway lines and due to fires in its interior. The Halde Lydia was opened to the public in 2006 following restoration and recultivation. In 2015 an ideas competition was launched for the future use of the tower and adjacent area.

The surviving structures at the site include the Förderturm Schacht IV with its original winding machines, the headframe of Schacht II alongside it, the former electrical workshop (originally the machine house of 1876), the Schacht II machine house of 1960, and the transformer building and switching house from the 1930s. The Schacht IV tower was designated a Historisches Wahrzeichen der Ingenieurbaukunst in Deutschland by the Bundesingenieurkammer on 4 March 2016, becoming the first structure in the Saarland to receive this distinction.