At the edge of Marl-Hüls, around 1905, the first towers of the Auguste Victoria colliery rose into the sky: Shaft 1 and Shaft 2. This double-shaft installation marked the beginning of a mining complex that would shape the city and its people for more than a century.

Built of heavy steel with their distinctive twin wheels, the headframes were gateways to a world deep underground. Every day miners descended here, nearly 600 meters below the surface, to bring up the black gold. It was the starting point of the mine, where labor, hope, and danger were inseparably bound together.

During the Second World War, the shafts were badly damaged by bombing, but later rebuilt and put back into operation. For decades they continued to serve coal production until their role faded in the 1960s. In 2007, the shafts were finally sealed.

Today, the imposing towers of Shaft 1/2 still stand as silent witnesses to a vanished industry. Where once the noise of engines and mine cages filled the air, there is now only silence – and the memory of the time when the Auguste Victoria colliery helped build the Ruhr area.