The Eisden mine, which was located in the relatively sparsely populated border region to the Netherlands, had to make special efforts to recruit sufficient workers when it started operations in 1922. Germans, Italians, French, Poles, Czechs or Hungarians were recruited. For its miners and their families, the mining company had an attractive housing estate with utilities built in the style of English garden cities. The streets and their greenery, the size of the plots and houses as well as their architecture were strictly hierarchically separated according to supervisors and workers.
One of the housing estates, a semi-detached house built in 1925, houses the 'Museum Miners' House' in the left part of the building. The house, which fell into serious disrepair after the colliery closed in 1987, was bought by the municipality, restored to its original condition at the insistence of the civil society and opened as a museum in 1995. It is furnished in the style of the 1920s and 1930s. The cooker, which can be heated with coal and wood, is still in the kitchen, and the sofa with crocheted doily and the heavy living room cupboard with the fine Sunday china are not missing in the living room. The museum flat is maintained and run on a voluntary basis by the Eisden Heritage Foundation (Stichting Erfgoed Eisden).
Museum Miner's house
Museum van de Mijnwerkerswoning
Marie José-Straat 3
3630 Maasmechelen
Belgium
+32 (0) 89 - 769888
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