‘Lautenthal’s Luck’ Mining Museum

Silver mining began in the Upper Harz Mountains in the Middle Ages and peaked in the sixteenth century. There were many inter-connected workings. The mine of ‘Lautenthal’s Luck’ worked until 1931 and became a museum in the 1970s. The workings were connected to the Tiefen Sachsen drainage tunnel, which was dug around 1600. The mine’s name goes back to at least 1681 and refers to the good fortune and prosperity it brought to the town of Lautenthal. Visitors take an electric train into one of the historical entrance tunnels and then are guided on foot through original workings to a reconstructed underground canal that takes them another 100 m in an ore barge. Exhibitions on the surface explain geology and mining techniques and include historical artefacts and models. Outside are rail wagons, a nineteenth-century mine shaft and a waterwheel.