Very beautifully situated mill with a museum on the water where events still take place.
Fritz Schäff ran the mill in the fifth generation until 1974. That means it had been owned by the Schäff family since 1775. There had been an iron hammer here since 1686. But there were mills here before that too: an oil mill was mentioned as early as 1464, and later a hammer for tresses and brass. Not far from the iron hammer there is also a street name "Am Kupferhammer", which refers to similar mills in the area. And the mill path with its many stops also shows that mills were - and are - common in this area.
The first generations of Schäff got their iron from Sulzbach-Rosenberg, the forerunners of the Maxhütte. But the last two owners got their material from a completely different source: from the railway! Old railway tires that were discarded by the railway were resold cheaply as scrap. This was the raw material from which all of the tools that you can admire here in the vestibule were made.
But over the course of the 20th century, ironware production using this laborious, hand-crafted method became unprofitable. It was no longer possible to compete with mass production. His wife Käthe had already fallen ill and died unexpectedly in 1956, and since there were no descendants who could take over the business, Schäff had to ask himself what to do with the iron hammer. It was clear to him that he did not want to simply close it down. It was to be used as a museum. And that is what happened. One third of the property went to the town of Roth, two thirds to the Roth district office, which still owns it today. The museum opened in 1985.