Steinbach Am Glan - History

History

The municipality was originally two separate linear villages, one on each side of the brook, that eventually met and grew together. The way the built-up area is laid out and the way the houses are built, much of it from the 19th century, still reflects this original configuration to some extent, along Bundesstraße 423 in Steinbach’s case and along the old village street in Frutzweiler’s. As Steinbach began spreading out to the south towards Börsborn as far back as the early 19th century, the two villages now have the outward appearance of a great clump village, and everywhere sidestreets have been springing up down to the present day. Where the two villages met, especially on the Steinbach side, a village centre arose. This is where the old belltower stands, built in 1788 and endowed by the then rulers, the Counts of Leyen, represented in this case by Countess Marianne von der Leyen. Also standing here is the old schoolhouse from 1825, which today houses a kindergarten and the municipal centre. The great limetree standing before the belltower was planted in 1849 as a “Freedom Tree” in the wake of the Revolutions of 1848. Steinbach once had a synagogue from 1725 that likewise stood in this village centre. In 2000, the municipality built the Jewish Museum in this area. The Jewish graveyard from 1825 lies outside the village on the mountain slope towards Henschtal. The general building pattern in the village is characterized by farmhouses, mostly for smallholds. In the village’s west lies the now closed Frutzweiler graveyard. The older Steinbach graveyard with its warriors’ memorial lies on Bundesstraße 423. A new graveyard west of the village at the Jungenwald (forest) was opened in 1970 for both villages. At the way out of the village to the south going towards Börsborn is the Catholic church, which was converted in 1936 from what had been a mine hoist house.

While the two former municipalities may have had many commonalities, their territorial histories on the other hand went two quite different ways. Both centres can look back on a more than 650-year-long history. Indeed, the first documentary mention came in 1355. The village’s foremost landmark is the belltower mentioned above.