Rafting in Calw

20 to 30 meter long logs (also called Dutch logs) were used as collection points in the river lowlands of Nagold and transported via the Enz River. The mighty fir and spruce trunks of the northern Black Forest were bound into rafts up to 200 meters long and floated downstream. Nagold and floated down the Enz to the Neckar. From there, the journey continued via the Rhine to the Netherlands, where the raw material from the Black Forest found a ready market. Through log rafting and also the cloth trade, Calw It developed into a well-known and wealthy trading city in the 19th century. The Palais Vischer on Bischofstraße, which now houses the city museum, is still a testament to this wealth.

None other than Hermann Hesse inspired the long-standing tradition of log rafting on the Nagold He erected a literary monument to it. In his story "Raft Journey" he writes: Long gone, however, is something that existed on the river back then, something beautiful and mysterious, something fairytale-like, something of the very most beautiful thing that this legendary river
The river was home to: log rafting. Back then, in our time, the Black Forest fir logs were transported throughout the summer in enormous rafts down all the small rivers, sometimes as far as Mannheim and sometimes even as far as Holland. Log rafting was a trade in its own right, and for every small town, the arrival of the new rafts in spring was a significant event.
The first raft was even more important and remarkable than the first swallows. Rafting on the Nagold It was already mentioned in the rafting agreement between the Imperial City of Heilbronn, Württemberg, and Baden in 1342. It was not until 1623 that the Nagold as a continuous rafting route from Schorrental below Urnagold up to the confluence with the Enz River in Pforzheim. Log rafting recovered from the Thirty Years' War.
Only slowly. It wasn't until the end of the 17th century that the lucrative timber trade with Holland began, where the large fir trunks were in demand as masts for ships. In 1711, the Calwthe merchant Johann
Martin Vischer received permission for Dutch log rafting by princely rescript. At his instigation, the Dutch log company was formed with members from various places along the Enz and... Nagoldtales. Johann Martin Vischer Jr., the son of
The company founder, whose name is also his, "understood" his business and brought it to considerable wealth. He had the ducal court architect Fischer advise him on the proper design. NagoldOn the riverbank in Bischofstrasse, a prestigious residential and commercial building, the Palais Vischer, was erected. Today, it houses the city museum. In the mid-19th century, timber rafting reached its peak. Subsequently, the trade in long timber from the Black Forest steadily declined in importance. [Further details omitted]
Contributing factors included the increasing competition from foreign timber suppliers and the newly constructed railway lines (Black Forest Railway 1872, Nagold(The valley railway was built in 1874), the country roads were expanded, and log rafting increasingly lost out in the competition with the growing number of mills and commercial users of water power. The final phase of log rafting saw the rise of recreational rafting, a leisure activity for locals and tourists. The last raft traveled on the [river name missing] in February 1911. NagoldLog rafting was officially discontinued on February 1, 1913.