Old Elisabeth" mine

However, the Alte Elisabeth mine is not actually a mine at all. The shaft and the surface installations are already quite modern and only replaced the original, multi-stepped discovery shaft at the beginning of the 19th century. Mining via several hand reels simply became too expensive. So the "Fundgrube" was given a new shaft and a steam engine as well. It has been here since 1848 and is still in working order today.

However, the facility is remarkable for another reason: it is Saxony's oldest mining museum. When ore mining in Freiberg ceased for the penultimate time - in 1913 - the Himmelfahrt Fundgrube mining company handed over the Reiche Zeche and Alte Elisabeth shafts to the mining academy as an educational and visitor mine. Everything you can see here today is (almost) as it was when it was abandoned in 1913. Only the steam engine is now demonstrated with compressed air. The Schwarzenberg blower actually belongs in the Halsbrücker Hütte, but during this time it was given a small new building here on the slag heap behind the Huthaus as a permanent exhibition site. Since then, countless visitors have strolled through the above-ground facilities.