1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Neunkirchen

NEUNKIRCHEN, or Ober-Neunkirchen, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the Blies, 12 m. N.W. of Saarbrücken by rail. Pop. (1905) 32,358, consisting almost equally of Protestants and Roman Catholics. It contains two Gothic Evangelical and a Romanesque Roman Catholic church, several schools, and a monument to Freiherr von Stumm (d. 1901), a former owner of the iron-works here. The principal industrial establishment is a huge iron-foundry, employing upwards of 4800 hands, and producing about 320,000 tons of pig-iron per annum; and there are also boiler-works, saw-mills, soap manufactories and a brewery. Around the town are important coal mines from which about 21/2 million tons of coal are raised annually. The castle built in 1570 was destroyed in 1797, and is now a ruin. The town is first mentioned in 1280, and became important industrially during the 18th century.