JABLONEC NAD NISOU

The first mention of Jablonec nad Nisou dates back to the year 1356, when it was a small Czech village just to the southeast of present-day Liberec. But the village suffered greatly during the Hussite Wars, when Catholic troops from Lusatia to the north utterly devastated it in 1469, leaving nothing but an apple tree on the banks of the River Nisa. Jablon is Czech for apple tree, so the town's name translates roughly to 'Apple tree over the Nisa.' The village was re-established 70 years after being destroyed, mostly by glass-makers invited from Saxony by the nobility. By the middle of the 16th century, a number of glass factories were in operation in the area, which was now called Gablonz by the primarily German-speaking population.

The settlement and some of the factories were razed again during the Thirty Years' War, but the community survived. The church of St. Anne was even built not too long after, in 1685. Later, in the 18th century, factories in the area began producing glass jewelry, and by 1761, exporting them to Western Europe, and the town flourished, even more so in the 19th century. In 1808, the settlement was established as a township, and in 1866 Emperor Franz Joseph raised it to town status, at which time it had over 2,000 inhabitants. The town was described as one of the most important industrial centers in Bohemia, and its glass jewelry was exported all over the world. A great deal of building activity took place in the 1860's, with the construction of today's Old Town Hall, a regional hospital, an applied-art school, a city park and the railroad. The Jablonec region became known as the "Austrian California", with foreigners flocking in to "try their luck". Dozens of luxurious houses and other buildings were built in grand turn-of-the-century Secessionist style, as well as a synagogue in 1892. The new century brought more construction, such as the town's theater, spa and the building that houses the Museum of Glass and Costume Jewelry, as well as the Old Catholic (Starokatolicky) church designed by Josef Zasche.

The First World War and the period afterwards affected the town greatly. During the war, the town was cut off from its overseas markets, and war-torn Europe had little interest in costume jewelry or glassware. The majority of the population (according to the 1910 census, only 2,500 of the 30,000 inhabitants were of Czech nationality) were German-speaking, and stagnation of industry fueled their discontent with the new republic. Still, the town erected two monumentalist structures and its most dominant landmarks between the wars, the New Town Hall with its slim clock tower and the Church of the Sacred Heart, also designed by Josef Zasche.

The city has been the location of the Czech Republic's mint since 1993.