the west and over the Flattnitz in the east were the main traffic routes in the north-south direction, while routes over Turrach had only local importance, e.g. for the transport of salt from the Salzkammergut to Reichenau (first documented mention in 1332), where there was a branch of the toll office. In the upper Mura valley north of Turracher Höhe, the region around Predlitz (first documented mention in 1311) was sparsely populated because the slopes to the right of the Mura were less suitable for cultivation. During the Middle Ages, the dominant settlement of this region was Murau, which belonged to Liechtenstein. But south of Turracher Höhe, rural colonization around Reichenau, where there was also a regional court in 1520, provided more compact settlements and single farms. Mining With a certificate issued in Moosheim dating from the year 1256, the Carinthian duke Ulrich III gave the minstrel and poet, Ulrich von Liechtenstein, the sovereign right for mining in the district of Murau, which contains the region around Turracher Höhe. However, concrete indications of mining in the Turrach region cannot be found either in this document or in the following centuries. In 1657, Johann Adolf Count Schwarzenberg, who ruled Murau, initiated the search for copper ore. In the Steinbachgraben, huge amounts of limonite (a type of iron ore) were found, whereupon the count asked Emperor Leopold I for a license for mining and smelting, which was issued on January 31, 1660. Already in the same year, Johann Adolf ordered the building of a bloomery for smelting iron in Turrach, and in 1662, the first tapping was performed. Initially the mining and smelting took place mainly on the Styrian side around the village at the northern foothill. In 1783, Count Johann Nepomuk Anton of Schwarzenberg ordered the extension of the road, which was 15 km long, from Predlitz to his factory in Turrach, in order to facilitate the ore transport. But there were routes for transporting wood and charcoal above the village, too, which reached today's pass summit. The general economic crisis resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and their consequences also reached Turrach's mining in the first two decades of the 19th century. Following that, the iron business—under Peter Tunner senior (the father of Peter Tunner), who led the company from 1823 to 1844—underwent a considerable advancement, due to the streamlining of working methods and the introduction of modern technologies. In the