Masevaux is located in the most southern valley of the Vosges dominated by the Ballon d'Alsace at 1247 m and the High Bers at 1250 m above sea level.
With its pedestrian town center, Masevaux has become a very welcoming city. City with 4 flowers, it has received the national prize of the blossom since 2000 and the flower of Gold in 2015!
The origins of Masevaux date back to the eighth century. The small town of Masevaux was during the great war the center of the military administration, the capital of Alsace reconquered. It welcomed many personalities: the President of the Republic, the King of Italy, Georges Clemenceau, the Marshals Joffre and Petain, many generals... Masevaux proved himself worthy of this honor because nearly 180 of his Sons voluntarily entered the French army.
The village is reported for the first time in a document written in 1482 under the name of Niederbruckhen. Later the archives mention in 1568 Niderpruckhen, in 1961 Niederbrucken and in 1776 Brucken. This last denomination, which is in the name of Bruckenwald, was still in use at the beginning of the twentieth century. The village is named after the Doller bridge.
According to certain authors, in ancient times a road left the Roman road Mandeure-Wittelsheim, either at Rougemont or at Soppe-le-Haut, to join, at the site of the present cemetery, the agglomeration later called Masevaux, And extending on the same bank of the Doller, crossed the territory where the commune of Niederbruck is situated, in order to reach the rear-valley. The names of Niederbruck and Oberbruck suggest that a very ancient road used two bridges, one on the Doller at Niederbruck and the other at Oberbruck on the torrent descending from the valley to Rimbach, Perhaps, beyond, the road to Lorraine by the Ruchberg or the Gratzen.
What was the age of the agglomeration of Niederbruck? Perhaps there was some construction at the mouth of the Glasenbach from the origin of the abbey of Masevaux in the eighth century. It seems unlikely that the counts of Alsace founded a convent of women at the entrance of a wild valley, haunted only by wolves and bears. The Franks seem to have left their mark in the denominations of places (the numerous Gesick, Burn, the use of the feminine die Bach instead of the Bach...) and in the patronage of the old churches of Masevaux: St Martin and St Léger.
In Niederbrucka, in Niederbrucka, transcribed, Niederbruckhen in 1482. In Alsace the great majority of the names of agglomeration ending thus in the spoken language, become des -heim in the written language. Think of Guewenheim, Sentheim, Wittelsheim... It is therefore not excluded that Niederbruckhen originally meant the Heim, the locality near the bridge.
In its beginnings the hamlet was inhabited by the farmers-breeders who gradually cleared the forest to create fields, pastures, meadows. Places indicate that the abbey and the castle of the Ringelstein of Masevaux had possessions there, possibly exploited by servants living in the village: Schlossmatte, Schlossacker, Stiftsacker...
In many places of the mountain one can find small terraces with blackened ground: these are former sites of charcoal grinders. The valley of the Kohlgrube (charcoal pit or charcoal pit) was, until about twenty years ago, a series of meadows between those of the Schlossmatte and those of the Entzenbach. Besides, in this last place lived in 1737 a charcoal-burner by the name of Jean-Caspar Battmann still exercising his activity of woodcutter-clearing.
The communal flock, led by a shepherd inhabiting the Hirtenhus until the end of the 19th century, rose every morning by the Hirtenweg grazing on the heavily deforested heights between Glasenbach and Denneberg, thus Heidel, Bruckenwald and Rhone.
The cultivation terraces rose quite high: to the foothills of the Triwelskopf and Rischburg (above the Haule), which are now covered with forests.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century livestock and agriculture regressed, the industry providing a livelihood to a growing part of the population.
In 1797 the cotton workshop of Jacques Vetter employs 30 weavers and 4 dyers. There were also some weavers at home. In 1822 Thiébaud Jenn employs 8 workers in a similar workshop.
In 1773 is reported a wheat mill with 2 hydraulic wheels. In 1785 a cutting-mill was created (making knives, axes, implements, etc.). These two establishments, as well as a two-wheeled fuller (textile milling workshop), were acquired by the company Witz, Steffan, Oswald and Co. when they fell into ruins. It was in the year 1809, under the first empire.
The new owners, originally from Mulhouse, installed two swifts for the manufacture of boilers, cauldrons, various utensils, bars and boards. Copper and zinc came from Russia, and even from America, via Lyon. The business grew rapidly. In 1882 it is the first in France to use the process of the yellow line, called false gold, or of the false silver line (coated with copper wires of a fine sleeve of gold or silver). In 1824 a zinc and brass rolling mill was created in an old sawmill situated downstream (now Golly).
In 1826 the factory employs a hundred or so workers. In 1838 Mr. Warnod acquired André Wider's cutting mill on the Glasenbach on the site of the fire brigade built in 1952. In 1844, after Oswald and Warnod took over, the factory Employs about 100 people. After the annexation of Alsace by Germany in 1871, the factory which was in full prosperity, stopped its activity due to the emigration of the Warnod family. Xavier and Joseph Vogt, who owned a foundry in Masevaux (and other companies in Soultz and Mulhouse) bought the factory and installed a bronze and brass foundry, then a wire drawing and taps and finally specialized in Manufacture of fabric printing rollers. In 1914 Vogt associated himself with Charpentier de Valdoie and in 1933 with Goguel de Montbéliard. After successive associations with Compagnie Française des Métaux, with the Tréfileries and Laminoires du Havre, the Brass and Alloys Company and the Péchiney Group, the factory has since been taken over by the KME Group. It currently has 150 employees.
After the diversion of the departmental road in 1970 and the dismantling of the railway line in 1971, which since 1901 had favored the activity of the factory, the latter expanded in 1973 by a new Building and now occupies almost the whole thalweg.
The village of Niederbruck owes, among other things, to the industrialist Joseph Vogt who was its mayor for 28 years (from 1891 to 1919) its chapel (laying the foundation stone on 12 May 1913), and on the rock of The Eichstein, visible from the road, the statue of the Virgin and the child. It was executed by the famous Parisian sculptor Bourdelle in 1923, following a vow made by the Vogt family during the war of 1914-18. This statue is one of the 100 masterpieces of France, according to the title of an exhibition of photographs, where it figured.
The present chapel replaces another built after 1728, following a petition from the eighteen village heads of the village to the Bishop of Basel. According to tradition, after the Thirty Years' War there would have been a chapel, no doubt tiny, in the village.
The petition of 1728 also asked for permission to employ a person who would teach the children and preside over devotional exercises in the chapel. Another petition of 1774 to the same bishop of Basle tells us that it is the hermit Jean Schmit who performs the functions described above. With the consent of the parish priest of Masevaux, the inhabitants of Niederbruck wish to keep him for life.
The old chapel, as it was then called, was badly damaged on the day of the liberation of the village on 27 November 1944 by the blasting of the beautiful bridge which crossed the Doller from a single arch, First years of the century. What remained of the chapel was shaved and the ground leveled. The three old lime trees between the two bridges recall the little square in front of the old chapel.
As we have seen, a school has been operating in Niederbruck since about 1730. As in 1842 the school, designed for 60 students, proved too small for the 80 who attended it, it was replaced by a larger one. This is certainly the current elementary school. A photograph of the end of the last century still shows 80 schoolchildren. It is known that around 1850 she was a nun who taught at Niederbruck.
Niederbruck counted about 1800 240 inhabitants, in 1975 305 and at the moment about 465 thanks to the new constructions.
If, for about a thousand years, the language of the people was German, for the last thirty years the majority of people speak only French among themselves.
On 1 January 2016, the municipality of Niederbruck merged with the municipality of Masevaux, becoming the new commune of Masevaux-Niederbruck.
