Exhibition: Mining in the Polish Tatras

Few tourists thirsty for the proximity of mountains and untouched nature visiting the Tatras know that for several centuries they were one of these mining activities. Before the mountaineers began to conquer the mountain peaks, treasures, treacherists and miners had long walked the Tatra Mountains. The beginning of organized mining activities in their Polish part dates back to the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries and are associated with the extraction of ores - copper and silver. During the reign of Aleksander Jagiellończyk, their exploitation was carried out on the eastern slopes of Ornak, and during the reign of Sigismund the Old also in the Chochołowska and Kościeliska Valley. The search for new metallurgical areas was undertaken up to the level of the 17th century, among others by the Wieliczka-Bochnia lupine maker Adam Kazanowski. After a break of over a hundred years, they were resumed shortly after Stanisław Augusta Poniatowski took the throne. Continued after the first partition of Poland, also by Austrian operators sent with the Wieliczka and Bochnia salt mines, does not bring the desired results. Eventually, they were abandoned at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The exploitation of iron and manganese ores and the related metallurgy operations that proved to be effective since the 18th century and developed in the next century. Numerous adits were opened in the following villages: Kościeliska, Chochołowska, Lejowa and Kopie Magura. Their takeover by the Hungarian Homolacs family (in 1807) and the introduced concentration of smelting and processing of raw material in Kuźnice resulted in the creation of one of the large enterprises in Western Galicia. In it, the construction of the first iron bridge connecting Kraków with Podgórze (1850) was made, and the salt buyers in Wieliczka and Bochnia were significant buyers of its wide range. Raw material difficulties and increased competition led to the conclusion of the contract in 1880. Another stage of mining activity in the Polish part In the first half of the 20th century sedimentary rocks for road services and construction were exploited in several quarries. The largest was in the vicinity of today's middle class ski jump. 

The latest and best preserved traces of work come from the early 1950s. The search for radioactive elements for the development of the nuclear program implemented by the Soviet Union was conducted, among others, in the Valley of the White. The remains of them are kept in very good condition two uranium adits. The history of Tatra mining is presented by modern photographs of excavations, mining dumps and traces of metallurgical activity, as well as panoramic shots of the areas in which industrial activity was conducted. Illustrative material is also photocopies of archival plans and photos showing production areas, as well as eye-catching microscopic images of mined ores and minerals. The substantive part of the exhibition is complemented by extensive comments in Polish, English and Slovak. The exhibition is the result of several years of documentary and research work of the Student Scientific Association of Geologists of the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow. Established in close cooperation with the Tatra National Park. The exhibition also uses substantive findings and photographs taken during the penetration of selected areas of mining activities carried out by employees of the Wieliczka Saltworks Museum. The fruit of this collaboration is also an album publication entitled "Tatra treasures". The Wieliczka museum will already be the fourth place of the exhibition, after the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, the Slovak Banska Bystrica and Zakopane Kuźnice.