Former Krummbachtal Quarry

Former quarry in the Krummbach valley with some artificially created biotopes as one of the natural monuments of the city of Gerlingen.

A beautiful place, definitely worth a detour

Location. The quarry in the Krummbachtal is located between the Gerlinger Schillerhöhe and the Mahdental not far from the Naturfreundehaus in the Krummbachtal
History: The quarry in Krummbachtal is geologically quite interesting, since a geological formation pushes up here, which is very impressive to see. The frozen waterfall is a bit inconspicuous in the picture, but worth seeing on closer inspection.
In the past, sand was won here from weakly bound Stubensandstein (km4). The disturbed bedding is particularly evident on the northern edge, where two 105° trending and oppositely dipping faults are also cut. The outcrop is located in the south-eastern part of the Leonberg fault zone, the NW part of the Fildergraben system.
The Gerlingen quarries became an important source of income in the 19th century. As Agnes Maisch wrote: Gerlinger stones were in great demand. Gerlingen was rich in stones. The stones did not lie in chunks on the fields, as for example in the Swabian Jura, but were to be found in massive camps in Forchenrain and in the lower Krummbach valley. It is not known exactly when stone breaking began in Gerlingen. In 1762, a “delivery of 16,000 shoe plates to the city wall in Ludwigsburg” is mentioned in the court record.
The heyday of quarry owners began with the construction of the railway line from Stuttgart to Ludwigsburg. One of the quarry owners was Christoph Schweizer, he was also one of the most successful. He was the first to build a house on Christophstrasse and also to buy up the neighboring properties. The street still bears his name today. Gerlingen also became an important stone supplier for Stuttgart, which experienced a great building boom in the second half of the 19th century. In the west of Stuttgart, entire streets and the Marienhospital in Stuttgart were built with stones from Gerlingen. The transport of the sometimes huge stones was extremely difficult at that time. In 1882, for example, a block of sandstone from the quarry of the brothers Johannes and Gottfried Schweizer was taken on a stone cart pulled by 6 horses from Mahdental via Leonberg to its destination in Stuttgart-Gaisburg. The Mahdentalstrasse - the direct route - was not built until 1926. Even a stone for the Gerlingen wine press had to be moved to Gerlingen via Leonberg, because the Krummbachtalstraße was only planned later.
Another independent entrepreneur was still active in the quarries: a forge was in operation to sharpen and repair the necessary tools.
With the advent of bricks, cement and concrete in the construction industry, hewn natural stones were no longer in demand. The number of quarries in Gerlingen declined rapidly. When the quarry operators were made aware of "health measures regarding tuberculosis" by the trade association in 1911, the Gerlingen mayor's office reported: "The quarry industry has almost completely ceased due to unprofitability." In the 1950s, the last quarryman, Wilhelm Fauser, given up.
Source: Stadtarchiv, Gerlingen and Geotope