page_title: Zillertal
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Zillertal / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Zillertal, a valley in the Tyrol, around 1898 Deutsch: Das Zillertal um 1898
context_page_description: The Ziller Valley is a valley in Tyrol, Austria that is drained by the Ziller river. It is the widest valley south of the Inn Valley and lends its name to the Zillertal Alps, the strongly glaciated section of the Alps in which it lies. The Tux Alps lie to its west, while the lower grass peaks of the Kitzbühel Alps are found to the east.
  The Ziller Valley is one of the valley areas in Tyrol most visited by tourists. Its largest settlement is Mayrhofen.
context_section_description: Near the Tuxer Joch, a pass between the Wipptal and the Tux valley, there have been archeological finds from middle Stone Age. The oldest remains of settlements in the Ziller Valley date back to the Illyrians during the late Bronze and early Iron Ages – a tribe from the Balkan Peninsula who were absorbed by the Bavarians (Baiuvarii).
  The earliest written record of the Ziller Valley dates from 889, when Arnulf of Carinthia granted land to the Archbishop of Salzburg in the "Cilarestal". Ownership of the valley was divided along the river Ziller. Even today this division is visible, as churches on the right bank of the river generally have green towers and belong to Salzburg Diocese, while churches on the left bank have red towers and belong to Innsbruck Diocese.
  In 1248, the land west of the Ziller was acquired by the Counts of Tyrol, while the lands east of the Ziller pledged as security to the Counts of Tyrol by the Lords of Rattenberg from 1290 to 1380. In 1504, with both the County of Tyrol and the Archbishopric of Salzburg dominated by the Habsburgs, the Ziller Valley was united under Emperor Maximilian and put under joint Tyrolean/Salzburgian rule.
  In 1805, the Treaty of Pressburg ended the War of the Third Coalition and forced Austria to cede Tyrol to Bavaria. For the purposes of this treaty, the Ziller Valley was considered part of Salzburg and thus remained with Austria. The people of the Ziller Valley nevertheless joined Andreas Hofer's Tyrolean Rebellion of 1809 in the Battle of the Ziller Bridge (14 May). Later that year, the insurrection was defeated and the Ziller Valley briefly became Bavarian until the Congress of Vienna in 1814/1815.
  While the relatively lenient stance of the archbishops of Salzburg had allowed the creation of small pockets of Protestantism in their lands since the Protestant Reformation, the remaining Protestants were oppressed more harshly during the Habsburg rule of the 19th century. In 1837, 437 Protestant inhabitants of the Ziller Valley left the valley after they were given the choice of renouncing the Augsburg Confession or emigrating to Silesia, where Frederick William III of Prussia offered them lands and housing near Erdmannsdorf (now Mysłakowice in western Poland).
  In 1902, the Ziller Valley Railway was constructed, which still runs between Jenbach and Mayrhofen to this day, opening up the valley, the economy of which had previously relied mostly on agriculture and mining, to commerce and tourism. From 1921 to 1976, magnesium carbonate (and later tungsten) were mined around the Alpine pastures of the Schrofen and Wangl Almen above the Tuxertal A ropeway conveyor of more than 9 km length was used to transport the ore to the Ziller Valley Railway goods station in the valley below.
  The Ziller Valley was known for its itinerant tradesmen, "farm doctors" and singing families. In the second half of the 19th century refuge huts were erected and trails established as climbing became a mass sport. The development of the area for tourism began in 1953/1954 with the construction of the Gerlosstein ski region, today the Zillertal Arena, which was soon followed by other lifts and the opening of the Mayrhofner Penkenbahn in 1954. The use of water power took off in the 1970s.
caption: The Ziller Valley c. 1898
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