A former steelworks in Gliwice founded in 1867, of which a water tower and a historic management building survive.
The Gliwice Steelworks is a former metallurgical plant that operated from the second half of the 19th century until 2000. Of the whole complex two structures survive today: the water tower and the management building. The rest of the site stood empty for a long time after the closure of the works.
In 1867 two German industrialists, Salomon Huldschinsky and Albert Hahn, founded a pipe works in Gliwice under the name Hahn und Huldschinsky. In 1889 the plant was extended with a steelworks with four open-hearth furnaces and a universal rolling mill, and production also covered railway wheels and tyres for wheelsets. In 1894 the firm was converted into a joint-stock company, and in 1904 it became part of the Oberschlesische Eisenbahn-Bedarfs AG concern.
During the First World War the plant switched to war production, mainly artillery shells and gun parts, and the workforce then numbered 6,500 workers. During the Second World War the steelworks employed 20,000 people. After 1945 it was called Huta 1 Maja and produced, among other things, wheelsets for the railways. The plant was closed in 2000, and in 2015 the company was struck off the National Court Register after bankruptcy proceedings ended.
The surviving water tower was built at the beginning of the 20th century, when the steelworks introduced a closed water circuit. Next to it survives the impressive management building from 1908, built on what is now ul. ks. Herberta Hlubka. A shopping centre was to be built on the rest of the site, but the investor withdrew from the project.
This is the site of a former plant, not a place with a visiting offer: none of the sources says that the structures are open to the public, so they can be viewed from the outside, without going inside.
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