Mining colonies: Les Liégeois Zwartberg

As a result of the successful exploratory drilling in As by André Dumont in 1901 several mining concessions were granted in 1906 by the Belgian state with the aim of exploiting the Campine coal basin. The mining concession Les Liégeois (literally: them from the city of Liége) was granted to a consortium of the Cockerill company, two mines from Liége (Espérance et Bonne Fortune and Patience et Beaujonc) and three local landowners (Théodore Masy, director of three Walloon mines, the industrialist Wittouck and lieutenant general Emile Thorn). The new mining company was named Société Anonyme Charbonnages des Liégeois en Campine. The company name chosen makes quite clear in no uncertain terms who was in charge in exploiting the coal in this part of Belgium.

At first the plan was to found the colliery in the village of As. The village council decided against this and so the mining operation was transferred to a site on the heath between Hengelhoef and Waterschei where during the nineteenth century the Cockerill company had tested its cannons and steel gun cupolas. This testing ground lay near an 80 m high hill known as the Zwarte Berg (literally: Black mountain). This hill would later name both the mine and the mining colony. Until the 1920s though, both mine and colony would be known under its French name as Les Liégeois.

Work on the colliery buildings started in 1910, as did the sinking of two pits. In 1909 a railwaytrack had been laid to link the site via the neighbouring mine at Waterschei to the regional railway Hasselt - Maaseik at As. The first housing for workers was also built in As. The company had bought land here when they had planned their mining seat at As. This Cité Cockerill , constructed around 1910, consisted of 36 houses and no longer exists.

Right from the onset the mining company had to contend with an enormous shortage of potential workers. The scarce inhabitants were scattered around small hamlets and also lacked the skills needed. Employing and housing people from elsewhere was part of planning the mining activities at Zwartberg. Technical staff and engineers were brought in from Wallonia. The rest of the workforce was found in the rest of the Campine region (both in Belgium and the Netherlands) as well as Germany and Poland.

Around 1915 work started on building housing near the colliery. Both a large villa for the mines executive and villas for the engineers were erected directly south of the colliery site. South of the railway housing for the workers was built in the Cité Sud or Zuiderwijk. After 1919 work on the Cité Nord or Noorderwijk was started. At the same time the Cité Sud was completed.

A schematic drawing of the Zwartberg suburb that is located in both Genk and Houthalen.

The colliery with its trim of villas and two mining colonies only makes up a small portion of the urbanized area. The mine was located near two large estates owned by the aforementioned T. Masy and E. Thorn. On another large landholding the suburb of Houthalen-Oost was developed after WW2. Over the course of several decades small and medium sized housing estates were built adjacent to the mining colony. These mining colonies have been dwarfed by the later developed suburban area.

The urbanized area around Zwartberg now consists of several suburban developments and housing estates including the old mining colonies Cité Sud (2) and Cité Nord (3). Next to these we find the former colliery site now a business park (1) and the strip of villas (4).To the north we find the Luciebois (5) and Eikenberg (6) estates. At the edge of these large estates we find the former storage and settling tanks (7) for the waste water and the old spoil heap (8) of the mine. On the Park van Genk estate in Houthalen Houthalen-Oost (9) was developed, later expanded with the Hutte estate (10) and Nieuw Limburg estate (11). The area around Peerdsmeer (12) was also built over. Next to the Cité Sud the Nieuw Driehuizen estate (13) and Hoevenzavel estate (15) were built. On the site of the former velodrome the Hengelhoef-Noord estate (14) was built.