Hunsrück who moved to the Eifel. Eventually, even Belgian migrants came from the Ardennes and there were also French newcomers who had fled their homeland to escape the Revolution. Their descendants can still be recognized by their now Germanized French surnames, among which are Buschwa, Allar, Gorges, Lefev, Gilles and Regnier. The first open slate pits were on the Sesterbach. Later, mining began to thrust its way into the mountain in the Sesterbach valley, the Endertbach valley and at the Kaulenberg Stollen (Stollen here meaning “gallery”, such as is found in a mine, not the commonly understood meaning in English). Some of the pits were in private ownership, although often 100 or more persons from one family were shareholders, which made for lasting poverty not only among the workers but sometimes even among the business owners. Wages for this extremely hard work were quite low, and owners’ profits from these enterprises were only slight owing to high transport costs; slates were hauled by horse as far as Klotten, where they were loaded onto boats on the Moselle. Smaller operations had to be given up and these were bought up by stone dealers from Klotten and Cochem. By about 1900, there were only three major slate mining businesses left, namely “Maria Schacht”, “Colonia Schacht” and “Müllenbacher Dachschieferwerk (Härewiss)” (Schacht means “shaft” or “pit”, and Dachschieferwerk means “roof slate works”). By 1898, the Eifel Railway from Mayen to Gerolstein had been running for three years and the workload at the slate pits in Leienkaul became a bit lighter. “Maria Schacht” and “Colonia Schacht” now transported their slates with machine power. “Colonia” laid a tramway to Müllenbach on which slates were transported in small, horse-drawn trams. “Maria Schacht” built a tramway of its own in 1907 and 1908 leading to the railway tracks at the Masburger Wald (forest) and running behind the “Wolfsburg”. At the same time, the “Müllenbacher Dachschieferwerk” built a railway powered by a diesel engine, which transported slates out of the Kaulenbach valley and up the steep Kaulenberg. In 1922, the “Maria Schacht” pit complex was sold for 1.5 million Marks to the Brothers Rother. In 1928, “Colonia” and “Härewiss” were shut down. Many young people left Leienkaul to seek jobs elsewhere. Since 1946, Leienkaul has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. On the night of 8 to 9 January 1959, nature put an end to