Glashütten bei Schlaining


Glashütten bei Schlaining is an Austrian dependent hamlet in the federal state of Burgenland. Situated in the municipality of Unterkohlstätten within Oberwart district, the official Hungarian placename until 1899 was Szalonok-Üveghuta.
The village is situated on a narrow road in a forested area of the Kőszeg Mountains 12 km from Oberwart. The road forms a part of the paved 19-km bicycle path that also takes in Goberling, Unterkohlstätten, Holzschlag, Günseck and Weissenbachl.

Glass works and mining industry

In 1658 Count Ádám Batthyány founded a glass factory there; the first official record of the village dates to 1698. The glass works were noted for the manufacture of a beautiful yellow glass resulting from the admixture of sulphur, but the glassmaking enterprise required enormous quantities of firewood, and both Glasshütten bei Schlaining and the nearby village of Günseck were required to supply the factory.
Since the 19th century the inhabitants have been mining metals, particularly antimony but also pyrite, chalcopyrite and serpentinite.

Modern history

An 1857 census records 35 houses in the hamlet and lists the name of the head of each household. In 1910 the population was 216. Until the treaties of Trianon and Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Szalónakhuta belonged to the Kőszeg subdivision of Vas district, Hungary. By terms of the Treaty of Trianon, the village was ceded to Austria in 1921, which was itself absorbed between 1938 and 1945 as part of Nazi Germany.
A volunteer fire department was established in 1907 after five houses were consumed by flame on 15 June that year. After World War II the village was electrified in 1951, and in 1958 a water supply system was brought in. The village was administratively attached to the township of Unterkohlstätten in 1971, and on 7 May 1995 a new firehall was opened.

Church of St. Louis

Originally part of the parish of Mariasdorf, then known as Máriafalva, Glashütten became part of the Unterkohlstätten parish when its first Catholic church was built in 1801. The present Romanesque church — dedicated to Saint Louis of Toulouse, whose cult had been much promoted in medieval Europe by King Charles I of Hungary — was built in 1816; it was sheathed in asbestos in 1906. In 1961 three bells were installed in the belfry.
The church was renovated in 1977 with a contribution of 240,000 schillings from the church authorities in Eisenstadt. In addition, a levy of 1,500 schillings was demanded from each of the village's 25 houses, and the local population did 160 days of unpaid labour on the project.