400 Years of Steelmaking in the Meza Valley - Set

The beginnings of steelmaking in the Meža Valley date back to the year 1620, when the first iron foundries began operating in Črna na Koroškem. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century Graf von Thurn built a nailmaking plant and wire-drawing mill there and in Mežica, which soon grew into an important enterprise within the Duchy of Carinthia. In 1835 Rosthorn's ironworks in nearby Prevalje became the first in the Habsburg Monarchy to make steel rails using the puddling process. These rails were supplied for the construction of the railway line between Vienna and Brno, for railways in northern Italy, and so on.