Bad Cannstatt

Bad Cannstatt's name originates from a Castra stativa, Cannstatt Castrum, the massive Roman Castra that was erected on the hilly ridge in AD 90 to protect the valuable river crossing and local trade.[4][5] In the past, Bad Cannstatt has been known as simply Cannstatt or Kannstatt,[6] Cannstadt, Canstatt, Kanstatt, and Condistat.[7] Its name was changed to include "Bad" (German: Bath) to mention the town's spas on 23 July 1933.

Bad Cannstatt lies on the Neckar at the convergence of various regional trails.[7] The area was inhabited by the Seelberg mammoth hunters during the last glacial period.[8] The town was founded during the Roman period, records survive of Roman knowledge of the area's springs.[6] The nearby Sielberg is notable for its caverns and fossils.[7]

In 746 Carloman, Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia, called a council at Cannstatt, arrested and executed virtually all nobles of the Alemanni. This marks the transfer of power from the Alemanni to the emerging Carolingians.[9] The present name first appeared as the seat of a court held by Charlemagne in the 8th century while trying the rebellious dukes of Alemannia and Bavaria.

Cannstatt was the capital of the county of Württemberg into the 14th[6] or 15th century;[7] the Rotenberg was the location of the ruling house's ancestral castle.[6] Cannstatt subsequently formed part of the duchy, electorate, and kingdom of Württemberg. It lay about 2.5 miles (4 km) from Stuttgart proper,[7] although it has since grown to include Bad Cannstatt. In the 13th or 14th century, Louis the Bavarian expanded its rights and privileges to equality with Esslingen. Its 15th-century cathedral was dedicated to St Uffo.[7] In 1755, the Great Lisbon earthquake caused the town hall to subside about 3 feet (1 m).[10] During the wars which followed the French Revolution, the town was the site on 21 July 1796 of a French victory over the Austrian Empire.[6]

In the 19th century, it boasted an attractive town hall, a royal theater, a market house, the Wilhelma and Rosenstein palaces, and extensive industry including wool-spinning, dyeing, steelmaking, and construction of machinery. There were then about 40 mineral springs, which were considered beneficial for "dyspepsia and weakness of the nervous system",[7] as well as "diseases of the throat".[6] Cannstatt was the site of Gottlieb Daimler's invention of the first petroleum-fueled automobile in 1886[11] and housed an automotive factory before the First World War. Around that time, it also had notable railway and chemical works and a brewery. Cannstatt was incorporated into Stuttgart in 1904.[6]

Of the 19 surviving mineral springs, 11 are recognized as state wells. In the world, it is now second to only Újbuda in Budapest, Hungary, in scale.[12] The Mombach spring is the only one that releases its water without pressure in large quantities; its outflow is used in the adjacent baths and the Wilhelma spa.

Famous people associated with Bad-Cannstatt include:

• Gottlieb Daimler, inventor of the first automobile, developed in Cannstatt, and part-founder of Daimler-Benz. (Karl Benz independently invented a successful automobile in the same year, 96 km away in Ladenburg.)

• Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878), "Canstatt" , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 26–27.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "Cannstatt" , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, p. 189.