Queen Luiza’s underground shafts had to be constantly deepened, which called for novatory solutions. Luckily, these were at hand thanks to the industrial revolution and the years 1799-1863 saw the erection of the mine’s Main Key Hereditary Shaft, a 14-kilometre underground corridor system whose first navigable stretch (up to 38 metres deep) made it possible to dry the mine (in 1810) and ship coal to a water outlet in the city centre, from where it travelled on to the River Odra and deeper into Prussia via the Kłodnicki Canal. This 2,5-kilometre stretch will now be the nucleus of a planned underground and surface skansen and a Mining Museum in the Queen Luiza mine. Quite soon visitors will be able to take a firsthand look at the daily toil of miners as they traverse Queen Luiza’s underground corridors by boat and rail truck.
Already today the Queen Luiza pit as well as other old-era industrial objects in Zabrze (with historical architecture and world-unique, still operable machinery) are major tourist attractions. Since 2003 Zabrze holds a Zabrze Industrial Tourism City certificate from the Polish Tourism Organisation.
The above projects will be possible thanks to EU funding – Zabrze’s European Centre for Technological Culture and Industrial Tourism project is second on a list of priority tourism projects under the Operational Programme Innovative Economy. The project costs are estimated at PLN 69 million, of which over PLN 41 million are to be channeled by the EU. Foreseen is reniovation work on historical industrial objects as well as the erection of new infrastructure. All work should be completed by late 2011.
Obtining EU funding for the plan would not have been possible without years of preparations. As early as 2004 the city magistrate in Zabrze together with the Katowice School of Economics initiated an international conference entitled The Wealth of Industrial Heritage a Tourist Attraction and Recreation Product, the first of a series of such meetings. This conference passed the so-called Zabrze Resolution which underscored the role of historical industry as an element of cultural heritage, and pointed to tourism as the vessel to keep it in social memory. Presented in full at the 2005 World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) forum in Coimbra, this resolution contributed to the European Economic-Social Committee’s announcement of an opinion entitled, “The role of tourism in the social and economic restoration of crisis areas” at EC’s IOctober, 2005 Europan Tourism Forum in Malta.