Hall in Tirol
Hall in Tirol is a town in the Innsbruck-Land district of Tyrol, Austria. Located at an altitude of 574 m, about 5 km (3 mi) east of the state's capital Innsbruck in the Inn valley, it has a population of about 13,000 (Jan 2013).
History
Hall in the County of Tyrol was first mentioned as a salina (saltern) near Thaur castle in a 1232 deed. The current name dates back to 1256, and similarly to Halle, Hallein, Schwäbisch Hall or Hallstatt is derived from the Celtic word for salt.
Since the 13th century the salt mine at Absam in the Hall Valley north of the town formed the main industry of the town and its surroundings. The first adit was laid out in 1272 at the behest of Count Meinhard II of Tyrol, with the brine channeled by a 10 km (6 mi) long pipeline to the evaporation pond at Hall. The importance of the salt industry, which exported goods as far as Switzerland, the Black Forest, and the Rhine valley, is reflected in Hall's coat of arms, which shows two lions holding a cask of salt. In 1303 Hall became a town. The rights that came with this, as well as the business associated with trading from Hall downriver on Inn and Danube, turned it into the leading market and trading place in the northern parts of Tyrol. Its development suffered a serious setback in 1447, when large parts of the upper town area were razed by a fire. In 1477 it got the right of coinage, when the Tyrolian mint was moved from Meran to Hall. It was here, in 1486, that the first high-grade silver Taler, the precursor of the dollar, was coined. In the 16th century the mint in Hall also introduced the world's first automated coining machine. Today a reconstruction of this revolutionary machine can be seen in the Hall Mint Museum in the Burg Hasegg.
