In the boom of the late 1890s, the coal mine United Stein and Hardenberg increasingly attracted foreign workers, especially from the Prussian eastern provinces. The colony of Exterberg (or Externberg) was created for the mining families in Eving. In 1898 and 1899, 76 houses with 270 apartments were built. As early as 1900, the New Colony, with 200 apartments in 49 houses, followed east of this old colony between Kaubstraße and Husarenstraße.
Today, the entire settlement is called "Old Colony". It shows how, at the turn of the century, the sequence of uniform houses that had characterized the former factory and coal mines was replaced by a more sophisticated architecture. Various basic and elevation views, brick, plaster surfaces and half-timbering alternate. Striking are the buildings with corner towers. The bourgeois villa served as a model for the exterior design of apartment buildings. The focal point of the settlement is the welfare building, which was built in 1903, but planning was already planned.
At the time of its creation, the settlement was considered exemplary. The "Dortmunder Zeitung" wrote on 13.10.1900: "For the first time one encounters here a number of quarters imposing residential district, in which not every workers' housing offers a copy of the neighboring, but carries a kind of peculiar character, so to speak." The apartment size was between 47 m² for three and 75 m² for five-room apartments. All apartments were equipped with running water and stove heating.
In the welfare building on Nollendorfplatz there were numerous company social facilities: among other things kindergarten, home economics and cooking school, laundry and library, at times also a Ledigenheim, a civil service casino and the coal consumption. In the bathhouse, the settlement residents were able to take a warm bath for a small fee until the sixties.
Like many other plant settlements, the Old Colony was threatened by demolition plans in the 1970s. A citizens' initiative could achieve that the largest part of the settlement was preserved. Due to the modernization of the houses and equipment with bathrooms, the bathhouse in the welfare building became redundant. First, a special school took place here, since 1989, the German Institute for journalistic education work with the Broadcasting Education Center. As part of the IBA Emscher Park, the building was renovated in 1992 as the first monument-protected project. In addition to the aforementioned educational institutions, it also uses the city of Dortmund for seminars, so that it continues to be a communicative center in the city.