Amélie Zurcher

Louise Marie Amélie Zurcher , born the August 27th 1858 with Bollwiller and dead the June 8th 1947, was the girl of the owner of the textile factory of Bollwiller. It is known in the south of the Alsace to have been the instigator of discovered potash in the Alsatian basement .

Childhood

The Amélie young person attends the elementary school of Bollwiller until in 1870, date on which the Alsace becomes German. She is then interned with the boarding school of the Dominican nuns of Nancy. Amélie obtains its Baccalaureat brilliantly there, and she also discovers geology there. She turns over on her native soil in 1877 to deal with her brother, Albert, wounded during the war of 1870. With him, it repurchases the farm of Lützelhof, close to Cernay. This one becomes a model of management.

The first drillings

In 1893, the farm knows a terrible dryness. Amélie must thus seek new means to avoid the ruin. The following year, it becomes acquainted with Joseph Vogt, director of a foundry. Learning the possibility of making underground drillings, it runs up however against the doubts of its close relations, who divide his opinion by no means, it which thinks that the basement of its properties would conceal richnesses.

However, after ten years of insistence, she manages to convince Joseph Vogt and Jean-Baptiste Grisez, specialist in the underground surveys, to make the first survey between Cernay and Lutterbach. They then hope to find Houille. The May 21st 1904 is created the Joint venture for the search for layers of coal in Alsace , which will become thereafter the Société Good Hope . The June 11th 1904, the first sounding is given. Whereas Vogt is discouraged rather quickly, Amélie Zurcher convinces it to persevere and, finally, it is an analysis of the laboratory of Strasbourg which announces the news: the barrel core crossed layers of potash of excellent content. Total success, therefore, for the sounders.

1906 - 1910: The exploitation starts

In front of the absence of financial investment French side, it is thanks to funds collected in Germany that the mining company Gewerkschaft Amélie is created the June 13rd 1906. It carries out 120 surveys in the area and, the April 22nd 1908, the first well is dark. In 1910, the industrial exploitation of the mine of potash can finally start. However, the following year, the Amélie Company is seen forced to yield all its concessions to a German mining company. But Joseph Vogt does not lose hope and manages to convince of the French bankers of Nancy to invest in the prospection of the Potassic Bassin.

During the Great War, the farm of Lützelhof is transformed into hospital of countryside in which Amélie Zurcher is nurse. At the end of the war, this farm is completely destroyed.

The year 1918 sees the victory of France, and Alsace becomes again French. Amélie, patriot, become again it too. The German wells are confiscated by France. In 1924, all the mines return at the French State, but Amélie is compensated. Potash the Domanial Mines of Alsace (MDPA) transform the area then. Amélie Zurcher is proud to have given this richness to its country: “ essence is that France benefits from this discovery, here my more beautiful reward ”.

Amélie dies in Cernay, the June 8th 1947.

It gave its name, inter alia, with the college of Wittelsheim, commune where the first drillings took place.

See too

External bonds

On the Mines of Potash of Alsace
the site of the general-purpose college Amélie Zurcher

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