Hollenstein an der Ybbs, now a municipality with around 1,685 inhabitants in the district of Amstetten, has opened its own Topotheque. The first images have been uploaded and invite visitors to explore the history of this village in the Ybbs Valley.
The cultural development of the municipality has always been closely linked to the interplay of iron, wood and water – Hollenstein lies on Lower Austria’s Iron Road. Over 86 per cent of the municipality’s area is forested, which gives the town its unique, natural character. Winter sports played a major role from the 1960s until the early 1980s. The ski fashion of the time can be clearly seen in the Königsberg lifts’ promotional brochure. The same applies to the construction efforts undertaken during this period to expand the range of winter sports on offer. This was viewed quite controversially at the time, as this newspaper article demonstrates. Today, as a hiking village and the main town of the Lower Austrian Eisenwurzen Nature Park, the town focuses its tourism on the warmer seasons.
The Topotheque thrives on participation: anyone who owns old photos, postcards or documents from Hollenstein can make these available to the local council for digital archiving, thereby helping to preserve the history of the Ybbstal for future generations.