
Slide show at hat house
On the TV in the hat house can now see a slide show of old maps and events since 1986.
Huthaus is the old name for the mine administration building.
Here the mined and already prepared ores were stored for transport to the smelter, as well as the miners' lamps and tools, and the mine books, in which the yield in particular, but also the costs of the mining operation were to be entered.
The manager of the mining operation, who was called the hatman at that time, usually lived in the hat house. He had to supervise or, as it was called at that time, guard the proper operation of the mine, including all persons working there and all material resources.
Nothing reliable is known about the location of a hat house on the site of the Düppenweiler mine. From the mine plan of the first mine operator, Hauzeur, from 1729, it is known that the miners - most of whom came from the Ore Mountains - lived in buildings that were located directly on the mine site. Hauzeur himself certainly lived with his family in Abentheuer in Hunsrück. However, he had employed a hatman in Düppenweiler who came from Saxony and who probably also lived on the mine site.
One of the later operators, the Frenchman Odelin, managed the mine himself. It is known of him that he had leased a house in Düppenweiler, which also served him as an administration building. Finally, in 1824, the Dillinger Hütte built a machine house about 35 meters long, in which a steam engine was in operation above the machine shaft. Because of its size, it probably also had the function of an equipment and ore store.
The present hat house was completed in 2004. It serves with its function rooms in the basement and the catering business with museum and informative area in the upper floor for the handling of the visitor traffic. The basement also houses equipment and material belonging to the "Historisches Kupferbergwerk Düppenweiler - Verein für Geschichte und Kultur" (Historical Copper Mine Düppenweiler - Association for History and Culture), which operates the mine, so that today's Huthaus does indeed have functions similar to those of its historical predecessors in the broadest sense.
On the TV in the hat house can now see a slide show of old maps and events since 1986.