Kahl am Main


Kahl am Main is a municipality in the Aschaffenburg district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It has around 7,500 inhabitants.
WWW Official Site

Geography

Location

Kahl am Main lies 107 m above sea level and includes, at the mouth of the river Kahl, the lowest-lying point in the state of Bavaria and covers an area of approximately 11 km2. It also lies right on the boundary with Hesse in a favourable location with regards to transport between Aschaffenburg and Hanau.

Demographics

Kahl has a rate of population growth between −0.1% and 0.1%. It also has an aging population with the largest age group being 65 and above in 2014. The average age has increased from 46 in 2005 to 47.5 in 2014. Even though there have been fewer births than deaths consistently since 1975, the city has experiences slight growth due to newcomers.

Governance

Municipality council

[Image:Kahler Sandhas.JPG|thumb|Kahler Sandhase]
The council is made up of 21 council members, counting the mayor.

Coat of arms

The municipality's arms might be described thus: Party per bend sinister wavy, the parting surmounted by a bend sinister wavy argent, azure a coney courant of the first in bend sinister, gules a demi-wheel spoked of six of the first couped in bend sinister.
The municipality of Kahl lies on a bend in the river Main, and this is referenced by the bend sinister wavy in the arms. This also refers to the river Kahl, which is part of the municipality's name. The tinctures argent and gules and the half-wheel refer to Electoral Mainz's former overlordship in the municipality. The silver hare recalls the Kahl dwellers’ nickname Sandhasen – sometimes also Sandbauern – arising from the municipality's lower crop yields than in other Main municipalities due to the sandy soil. Since 1806 the place has belonged to Bavaria, which is reflected in the tinctures argent and azure.
The arms have been borne since 19 July 1960.

Town twinning

The latter relationship is a "town friendship".

Economy

Within Kahl's municipal limits, roughly 350 businesses have their seats, among them Kopp, Linde Material Handling GmbH and Singulus Technologies, three big companies in engine building and electronics. Business taxes from all businesses lie between €3,300,000 and €9,100,000 each year.

Culture and sightseeing

Clubs

Clubs include the Feuerwehr FF-Kahl and the Rotes Kreuz Kahl. There was an umbrella group, the Vereinsgemeinschaft Kahl, to which many of the local clubs belonged, and which, among other things, staged the yearly Kerb. Even though the municipality dissolved in 2016, the Kerb has been taken up by several other municipalities and is now organized by volunteers.

Buildings

[Image:Kahler Rathaus Wasserturm.JPG|thumb|Town hall and watertower]
[Image:Kahler Fachwerkhaus.JPG|thumb|Timber-frame house (17th century)]
[Image:Kahler Backes.JPG|thumb|Bakehouse (about 1650)]
  • Baroque Schloss Emmerichshofen, built in 1768 by Baron von Bentzel-Sternau.
  • Saint Margaret's Catholic parish church in Baroque Revival style, made of red quarried Buntsandstein. A church was first mentioned at this site in 1330.
  • Evangelical Cross Church in Bauhaus style.
  • Town hall: former customs house, built in 1830 in Neoclassical style, after 1834 a match and cigarette factory, after that an inn, weather station and school, since 1939 the municipality administration's seat.
  • Watertower, built in 1931.
  • Bakehouse : public oven, in which until 1938 bread was baked for almost 300 years. Today it is one of the oldest constructions of the city.
  • Timber-frame house, known to have stood before the Thirty Years' War; later a house and an inn; damaged by improper drain restoration.
  • Sand Hare Monument : Kahl landmark of the former sand quarrying in the region, built in 1952 by Hermann Kröckel. The sand hare is also a charge in the municipality's arms.
  • Mills on the Kahl: Once, eleven mills were running on the lower three kilometres of the Kahlgrund upstream from where the Kahl empties into the Main. The first was mentioned in 1358. Ground were grain, mustard seed and oilseed. “Sand mills” played a rôle beginning about 1900. In one of the fulling mills with 15 workers, Nikolaus Wahl brought the world's first automatic feltmaking machine into service in 1904. At the beginning of the 21st century, only a few mills bear witness to that time, and some have been converted to houses: Obere Fallersmühle, Untere Fallersmühle, Schäfereimühle, Lohmühle, Nassmühle. Since the millers often backed the water up too high, there were time and again floods. In particular, the Nassmühle came to grief one day in the late 16th century when local farmers, angered at having their harvest wiped out by flooding, stormed the mill on 2 June 1573 and destroyed it. A hiking path with documentary plaques follows the historic mill route.

Parks

  • The Vogelpark Kahl was founded in 1971 and was a three-hectare non-profit aviary and open-air complex for domestic and exotic birds. On 30 June 2006, the bird park was closed on consideration of the bird flu regulations, such as those requiring confinement.

Nature

[Image:Kahler See.JPG|thumb|Typical sand slopes at the Campingsee]
[Image:Kahler Hexeneiche.JPG|thumb|“Witches’ Oak” monument]
The local scenery is characterized by forest and water, which make up 75% of the municipal area. The quarry lakes of the Kahl Lake Plateau with outdoor bathing at Waldseebad and Campingsee with one of Bavaria's biggest campsites as well as the angling ponds of the former Emma-Süd pit and the Vorspessartseen offer opportunities for angling, boating, swimming and surfing. Five hiking trails and a fitness course lead through the Kahl nature areas with their typical vegetation and sand flora. Many wild herbs, hogweed, wild carrot and malva grow in the meadows alongside the Main, where there is also a small campsite.
The natural monument Hexeneiche on the B 8 was destroyed on 7 August 1970 by a lightning strike. The oak, known to have already been standing in the Thirty Years' War, had to be felled on 8 June 1971. A newly planted oak and a memorial stone recall the witchhunts in the early 17th century, to which 69 women and 21 men fell victim here.
On holidays, the railway line between Kahl am Main and Schöllkrippen is often used for “Historic Steam Locomotive Journeys”.
[Image:Kahler Mainufer.JPG|thumb|Landscape on the Main near the mouth of the Kahl]
The Kahltal-Spessart cycling-hiking trail starts at Kahl.

Infrastructure

Transport

Kahl am Main lies in a favourable location with regards to transport between Aschaffenburg and Hanau with good transport links to Autobahn A 45 as well as Autobahn A 3. Bundesstraßen 8, 43 and 43A link Kahl am Main to the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region.
The Main–Spessart railway from Frankfurt to Würzburg, where it connects to Nuremberg and Munich, runs through the Kahl am Main station, which is served by Regional-Express services. Here the Kahlgrundbahn branches off. Kahl has no goods station. The nearest ones are in Hanau and Aschaffenburg.
The nearest airport is Frankfurt Airport.

Utilities

Nuclear power station

Despite the name, the first nuclear reactor in Germany, the Versuchsatomkraftwerk Kahl was not built in Kahl am Main but in the neighbouring municipality of Großwelzheim. There were three reasons the plant was not named after Großwelzheim:
  • Kahl was easier to pronounce for the U.S. personnel;
  • Kahl had a railway station; Großwelzheim did not;
  • the plant got its mail from the Kahl Post Office.
The power plant was shut down in 1985 and the reactors have been dismantled.