Abentheuer

Abentheuer
Coat of arms
Abentheuer
Location of Abentheuer within Birkenfeld district
Coordinates: 49°38′59″N 07°06′14″E / 49.64972°N 7.10389°E / 49.64972; 7.10389Coordinates: 49°38′59″N 07°06′14″E / 49.64972°N 7.10389°E / 49.64972; 7.10389
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Birkenfeld
Municipal assoc.	Birkenfeld
Government
• Mayor	Klaus Goldt
Area
• Total	6.12 km2 (2.36 sq mi)
Elevation	421 m (1,381 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	450
• Density	74/km2 (190/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	55767
Dialling codes	06782
Vehicle registration	BIR

Abentheuer is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Birkenfeld, whose seat is in the like-named town.

The municipality lies on the Traunbach in the Schwarzwälder Hochwald (forest) in the Hunsrück. Beginning on the village’s outskirts is the Trauntalschleife, the award-winning hiking trail of the Saar-Hunsrück-Steig, a 180-kilometre (110 mi) long system of trails. The municipal area is 71.5 percent wooded.

Abentheuer borders in the north on Börfink, in the east on Buhlenberg and in the south on Brücken.

Two outlying homesteads also belong to Abentheuer: Arthenberg and Hujetsägemühle.

Abentheuer grew together in the early 20th century out of the two formerly separate centres of Leyen and Abentheuer, the latter also known as Abentheuerhütte. Leyen, which lay in the southeast of today’s municipality, on the Traunbach, had its first documentary mention in 1367, whereas Abentheuer, to the north, is first witnessed in records in 1580. Until the 18th century, each centre still bore its own name. Today’s municipal area was held by the County of Sponheim. The Traunbach then served as the border between the Hunolstein (and beginning in 1598, Palatinate-Zweibrücken) Amt of Achtelsbach to the west and the Sponheim Amt of Birkenfeld to the east. Over the course of its history, Abentheuer belonged either to the parish of Achtelsbach or to the parish of Birkenfeld; today it belongs to the parish of Brücken.

Beginning in the mid-16th century, the working of iron began, first from the pits in Buhlenberg and Elchweiler, then later from Thalfang and Schwarzenbach. In 1763, owing to economic hardship, the Abentheuer Ironworks (Abentheuerer Hütte) passed into the ownership of the Stumm entrepreneurial family, which already had other ironworks and hammermills in the region at its disposal. After this change in ownership, production in Abentheuer rose noticeably. From 1770, the plant’s products were first and foremost cast-iron articles made from imported pig iron. In 1835, the ironworks were bequeathed to the Böcking brothers, who shut the works down in 1875 and moved them to the coal deposits and better shipping links on the Saar.