Discovering Bourtzwiller

Built in 1911 by the Franciscan order, which also built an adjoining convent (now the Maison des Associations and Baumann Square). Opposite, the Place du Rattachement (in honour of the merger with Mulhouse in 1947), with the Paul Stinzi primary school dating from the 1930s. To the left of the church, opposite the rue des sapeurs pompiers, a monument commemorates the 6 civilians shot in reprisal by the German military on the night of 15 August 1914, during which 65 houses and 6 factories were burnt down in Bourtzwiller.

These semi-detached houses were built in 1947. The streets in this complex honour the resistance of the Vercors maquis (1942-1944): Rue du Vercors, Rue des Maquisards, Rue de Grenoble.

Alfred Meyer was an Alsatian patriot who informed the French authorities in 1914-18. Denounced, he was shot in 1916 at Ile Napoléon (see the monument of the shot on the circuit n° 11 of the 5 districts in Rixheim). Around the square, there is a large housing estate in the rue de Dieppe dating from 1955 and created by the company "Habitat et Loisirs". Among the 96 individual houses built, several belonged to companies (Manurhin, SACM, Gluck, Schaeffer).

The "Aviatik" housing development, currently being developed, is a reminder of the existence of the Aviatik factory on this site (now the Manurhin factory) which, from 1909 to 1914, was a pioneer in the construction of aeroplanes flying from the Habsheim aerodrome and setting many world records at the time.

The Doller river, a Vosges mountain river, rises near the Ballon d'Alsace, flows through Masevaux and into the Ill near Illzach. Its pure, crystal-clear water feeds the water table from which Mulhouse draws its drinking water near Reiningue. Here the path is also a cycle track and is lined with Bysance hazel trees. Before the Doller was dammed up, floods were numerous and devastating.

"Les Berges de la Doller", an eco-neighbourhood built since 2009 in place of the 420 homes in the Cité Brossolette, all of which have now been demolished as part of a major urban renovation programme. A little further on, a passage under the Florival expressway linking Mulhouse to Guebwiller.

Mulhouse Nord Cemetery, with its funeral parlour and mementorium, was built in 1974 on land that was formerly clay quarries for the Tranzer tile works in Bourtzwiller.

This milestone of the Republic of Mulhouse, dating from the 1760s, features the sculpture of the Mulhouse wheel. In 1437 Mulhouse bought the commune of Illzach, and its territory came to this point, bordering Kingersheim. The Free Republic marked its perimeter with such milestones, and checked them every year by riding around the ban (Banritt in German). We are here in the Roedlen wood, a part of the alluvial forest of the Nonnenbruch.

The name Rue du Rouet comes from a mistranslation of Raedle (Alsatian for "spinning wheel"), whose name came from the neighbouring wood of Roedlen (which means cut forest).

Kingersheim water tower

The Kingersheim Green Walk runs along the Dollerbaechlein, a river that branches off from the Doller at Reiningue and flows into the Ill shortly before Ensisheim, after passing through Lutterbach, Pfastatt, Richwiller, Kingersheim and Wittenheim. A signposted path (blue easel) runs along this route from Lutterbach to Ensisheim (20 km).

This housing development of about fifty individual houses and fifty double houses was built in 1933 and bears the name of Louis Loucheur, Minister of Labour who passed laws in favour of social housing in 1928.

"Cap Cornely" is a housing development currently under construction, whose name recalls an embroidered motif made here by the former Bel Air curtain factory, demolished in 2005. This new district, which covers 5 hectares, includes 220 dwellings (residences and town houses) as well as a large building that houses the "Papillons Blancs".

This HLM complex was built in the 1950s in the streets of Riquewihr, Ribeauvillé and Kaysersberg, as a solution to the post-war housing crisis.

This former fire station of Bourtzwiller, built in 1935 by the mayor of Bourtzwiller Albert Macker, was transformed in 1947 into an annex of the Mulhouse fire station and in 1995 into a police station.