Germany Zeche Elephant - March 2019

[ForgottenBuildings]

History

This colliery was opened in 1901 due to the increasing demand of coal in this heavy industrialized area of Germany. After that this coal mine grew rapidly in the amount of employees and the amount of coal that was made in this place, this complex made on its peak around 9000 tons coal per day. In 1997 this coal mine was sold to another big german coal mining concern. in 2010 this place needed to be shut down to new environmental reasons and because mining coal in this area was outdated and too expensive. 

Our explore:

when we went to this place we didn't really knew what to expect of this place this was because we didn't really saw any photos of this place at that time, i only knew that there was a nice cooling tower on this site and that there was a control room somewhere. When we entered the complex we could pretty much walk free around, there warent any camera's or sensors at the time of exploring. After walking around for awhile we found an entrance to the admin building. When we got inside we were absolutely staggered with the state this building was in. Everything was still like the closing day in 2010, and it was really nice and warm inside (75 degrees Fahrenheit). There was also an amazing room full of baskets, this one is probably one of the better examples. 

I really liked exploring this place!

Elephant by Hooismans, on Flickr

Bergwerk HR by Hooismans, on Flickr

Cooling Tower by Hooismans, on Flickr

Cooling Tower by Hooismans, on Flickr

Bergwerk HR by Hooismans, on Flickr

Baskets by Hooismans, on Flickr

I also made a video of this place where i tell the history of this place. And where i explain were certain rooms were used for.

It is is dutch but i has Subtitles.

Thanks for reading through!

 

[Urban_Moocher]

Good video, place looks great. Although we must not talk about the elephant in the room  :6_smile:

 

[Andy]

Fantastic place & interesting video.

 

[obscureserenity]

Fantastic report, got some great pictures there. Especially liking the elephant, not something you see everyday! 

 

[Andy]

I wonder why / how the elephant got there. Possibly in this place have been any kind of event or art exhibition sometime in the past, from which the sculpture stayed there? 

In any case, it's unusual to find such a figure in a colliery, and an extraordinary thing to photograph it there.  

 

[ForgottenBuildings]

I wonder why / how the elephant got there. Possibly in this place have been any kind of event or art exhibition sometime in the past, from which the sculpture stayed there? 

In any case, it's unusual to find such a figure in a colliery, and an extraordinary thing to photograph it there.  

its was probably used for the day it closed, because there were also all kinds of coal mining related things written on it. 

 

[The_Raw]

That's awesome. The elephant is a strange addition but also very cool