Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Écomusée des Mines de Fer de Lorraine, located in Neufchef-en-Moselle, was born in 1983 of the desire to preserve the industrial heritage of the Lorrain iron basin, which had been declining since the 1970s. The museum, which has been open to the public since 1989, offers an immersion in the world of iron miners through two sites: Neufchefchef, with its 1.5 km of galleries reconstructing three mining eras (1820 to the present day), and Aumetz, where an extraction machine and a 35-metre horse riding, classified as a historical monument in 1995, dominate the landscape. The project combines archives, mining objects and testimonies to document underground work, mining techniques and the social life of workers, while benefiting from the label Musée de France.

The site of Neufchef, formerly the Bassompierre mine (active from 1900 to 1983), offers a route guided by former miners, supplemented by interactive models on geology and steel, as well as reconstructions of family scenes of the 1950s. An exceptional collection of 250 mine lamps, acquired thanks to the donation of Armand Willaume in 2004, is displayed alongside mining machinery and sound archives collecting the accounts of the workers. The museum also addresses social struggles, immigration and paternalism in mining cities, while preserving industrial remains such as an original forge and a V1 bomb of the Second World War.

In Aumetz, the chivalry and extraction machine, registered with historical monuments, illustrate the techniques of exploitation by well, while a panoramic platform reveals the footprint of the mines on the Upper Country, between workers' towns and fortifications of the Maginot line. Exhibitions detail the evolution of mining explosives, electrification of galleries and tools of blacksmiths. The ecomuseum, accessible to people with disabilities, is part of a process of valuing the regional cultural heritage, combining industrial memory, technical innovations and social heritage of the Lorraine Black Gules.

External links