Museums

Sztygarka Museum in Dąbrowa Górnicza

The classicist building at Legionów Polskich Street 69 was erected in 1839–1842 as the seat of the Bank of Poland and of the Western Mining District administration; the design is attributed to Franciszek Maria Lanci. From 1889 a mining school operated here — later the State School of Mining and Metallurgy — from which the colloquial name „Sztygarka” derives. The Municipal Museum in its present form was established by a city council resolution of 19 November 1997, although museum traditions in Dąbrowa Górnicza go back to 1910, when the Geological Museum of the Polish Tatra Society was opened.

Permanent exhibitions

The exhibitions present the history of the metallurgical and mining industry of the Dąbrowa Basin in the 19th and 20th centuries and the everyday life of the region's miners and farmers. The geological section shows the formation of hard coal deposits, and among the exhibits are archaeological finds and fossils up to 150 million years old, brought inter alia from the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. The Room of 7 Continents gathers memorabilia of Polish travellers, and a separate exhibition is devoted to Adam Piwowar — a geologist and graduate of the local mining school.

The Training Mine

The greatest attraction is the underground route of the Training Mine, built in 1927–1929 as a training facility for the mining school and used for teaching purposes until 1994. The site belongs to the Monuments of Technology Route of the Silesian Voivodeship. Opposite the museum, in a small park, stand the monument to Stanisław Staszic and the „Oak of Freedom” nature monument; the entrance to the training mine is in the same park.