Staré Město (Šumperk District)

Staré Město was founded during the mining colonization of this area in the late 13th and early 14th century. The first written mention of Staré Město is from 1325, when it was already referred to as a market town. In 1336, it was promoted to a free mining town by Moravian Margrave Charles IV. The town was known for mining, especially gold, silver, copper and iron ore. During the Hussite Wars, all the mining works were destroyed and mining stopped.[2]

Staré Město was acquired by the lords of Zvole in 1448. Václav of Zvole restored the glory of the former mining town in the mid-16th century and made it a trading and craft centre; linen became the most important. In 1560, the settlement restored its town privileges.[2]

Church of Saint Anne

The town further prospered during the rule of the lords of Bruntálský of Vrbno (in 1582–1615) and during the short rule of the Petřvaldský of Petřvald family (1615–1622). Eliška Petřvaldská had the wooden houses on the square replaced with brick ones, and had the new town hall and church built. Properties of the family were confiscated from them after the Battle of White Mountain and sold to Karl I, Prince of Liechtenstein in 1624. The Liechtensteins owned Staré Město until 1848.[2]

In 1645, during the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish soldiers looted Staré Město and burned down half of it. However, the town recovered quickly. During the 17th and 18th centuries, it became a local centre of agriculture and crafts. The predominant craft was linen; metallurgy, glassmaking and butchery production also developed. Even the Silesian Wars in the 18th century did not stop the economic growth of the town.[2]

In the 19th century Staré město became a regional industrial centre. The Buhl family of entrepreneurs founded a small factory processing flax and even cotton in 1828. Also enormous deposits of graphite were discovered, and Buhls were one of the first mining investors. A branch railway line along the Krupá and Morava rivers down to Hanušovice opened in 1905.[2]

Remannts of the fortifications

After the establishment of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, a Czech minority was established in what was ethnically mostly a German town until then. The town was strongly militarized in the interwar period due to its strategic position near the German border at Kłodzko Pass and due to the rise of the nacionalist Sudeten German Party under Konrad Henlein, who attacked the Czech minority. Extensive construction of the border fortifications began here in 1937, and in 1938 the town was given a permanent Czechoslovak military garrison. The 1938 Munich Agreement resulted in German occupation. During World War II the town was incorporated into Nazi Germany as a part of Sudetenland. The occupiers made the town a recreational area for Wehrmacht forces.[2]

The German population was expelled in 1946. The municipality, which lost its status of a town in 1946, was resettled by families especially from inner Czechoslovakia, but also from Hungary and Bulgaria. The region of Staré Město lost its strategic military position as the former German territories in the northwest fell to Poland, therefore nearby woods could be exploited. Handicraft production disappeared, but tourism began to develop.[3]

In 1976, the villages of Chrastice, Kunčice, Nová Seninka and Stříbrnice were joined to Staré Město.[3] Staré Město restored the town status in 2000.[4]