Rive-de-Gier


Rive-de-Gier is a commune in the Loire department in central France.
It was an important center of Loire coal mining basin, glass making and iron and steel manufacture in the 19th century.
In the late 20th century the town lost most of its heavy industries.

Location

Rive de Gier 24 km northeast of Saint Etienne, 39 km southwest of Lyon and 11 km from the town of Saint Chamond.

History

Early years

In the Celtic and Roman Gaul eras, the town lay on the boundary between the Segusiavi and the Allobroges.
The name of Rive-de-Gier is used for the first time in the 11th century.
Renaud de Forez surrounded the town by walls and ditches during the reign of Philip II of France .
A hospital is mentioned in 1447. At the end of the 16th century the population was estimated at between 1,600 and 1,700 souls.
Between 1562 and 1864 there were clashes between Protestants and Catholics.
King Henry IV of France spent time at Rive-de-Gier.
There was a castle and a Romanesque church, but both have been destroyed.
During the uprising in Lyon against the National Convention in 1793, thirteen armed people of Lyon were killed by the inhabitants of Rive-de-Gier when they returned through the town after being defeated at Saint-Étienne.
In 1831 a riot of gunsmiths in Saint-Étienne injured several and led to the arrest of 18 people,
The same year the miners of Rive-de-Gier, and then the glass makers, went on strike. The miners went on strike again in 1840 and 1844.
In 1848 Jean-Marie Sigward, a glass maker, acclaimed the Republic.

Industrial era

Transport

Since the Gier is not navigable, a canal to Givors was opened in 1779 to transport coal.
This canal, of which only a few remnants have survived, was replaced by the Saint-Étienne–Lyon railway, first passenger railway in France, built in 1828-33.
Rive-de-Gier houses what was probably the first railway tunnel made in France.

Coal mining

In 1837, different mining companies in Rive-de-Gier joined forces to create the Compagnie Générale des Mines de Rive-de-Gier to buy the pumps needed for drainage of the underground works. When this company saw its coal reserves were exhausted, it set up in Saint-Étienne in 1840.
It was the Compagnie Générale des Mines de la Loire before being absorbed by the powerful Compagnie des Mines de la Loire.

Glassware

For many years glass production was located near the forests that provided the charcoal needed for combustion.
In the 18th century glass works were moved closer to coal mines. In 1749 the glass maker Robichon from Franche-Comté moved to Givors where it used sand from the Rhone as material and coal from Rive-de-Gier as fuel.
In 1788 there were two glass factories in Rive-de-Gier making bottles and glasses.
At the beginning of the 19th century the Robichon company moved to Rive-de-Gier by buying other glass works, and introduced the production of flat glass.
By 1830 the thirty glass works in the city employed about 1,200 people.
The Richarme glass works founded in 1826 in the Egarande neighborhood specialized in the manufacture of bottles.
In 1877 Petrus Richarme rebuilt the factory with an area of and introduced into France the gas and continuous melting furnaces of Siemens.
The company operated until 1958 before being demolished.
The last glass factory, located in the district of Couzon, Duralex, ceased operations in 2006.
It had been founded in 1906 by Emile Hémain before merging with Souchon-Neuvesel in 1958 to join the Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel group in 1966.

Metallurgy

In 1837 H. Pétin and J. M. Gaudet, mechanics and forgers, set up shops at Saint-Chamond and Rive-de-Gier.
On 14 November 1854 Pétin et Gaudet merged and combined with four other companies to create the Compagnie des Hauts-fourneaux, forges et aciéries de la Marine et des chemins de fer.
The company, which engaged in extracting, processing and selling iron and coal was initially based in Rive-de-Gier.
On 9 November 1871 it moved its headquarters to Saint-Chamond and became a limited company.
The forges of Petin-Gaudet, Lucien Arbel, Marrel and others were the real economic engines of the city.
As a symbol of this time, the chimney of the old Marrel Forges on the site of Châteauneuf, Loire, built in 1866 and one of the highest in Europe at,
was classified a historical monument in 1992.

Recent years

Rive-de-Gier has suffered the brunt of the massive disindustralization of the 1980s and 1990s, with the massive loss of industrial jobs,
the closure of the SSFR, and the July 2008 closure of the last operating glassworks in the Gier valley.

Population

Economy

In 2010, the municipality had 14,996 inhabitants.
A significant number of inhabitants work in other communities such as Lyon.
Every Tuesday and Friday morning a large market is open in the main square, the Place de la Liberation.
The market attracts nearly 200 merchants, making it second largest market in the Loire department, both in terms of diversity and quality.
It is also the largest market in the department to require that market traders remove all their waste at the end of each market
Every Saturday morning a market of farmers and artisans takes place on the same site, in the Canal Street extension.

Sports

Sports clubs are organized in associations.
The BCR - Basket Club de Rive de Gier is a men's basketball team.
The Gier Country Rugby Club has a men's and a women's rugby team that participates in the Federal Championship of Women's Rugby.
The Athletic Club Rive de Gier is a football club.

Culture

Socio-Cultural facilities

The Château du Mouillon has a central part that corresponds to the original house and dates back to the 18th century.
The complex was acquired in 1850 and developed successively by two families of industrialists.
First Lucien Arbel, then in 1894 by Jean-Marie Marrel and his son Henri, who had it improved by Parisian designers and artisans.
The building, common, garden and some rooms are included in the inventory of historical monuments.
The house of the Men of Stone was built between 1880 and 1883 by Charles and Étienne Marrel near the first plant of the Marrel Brothers company. The main façade is distinguished by its stone balconies decorated with ironwork, carved window lintels and two towering statues of 'men of stone" supporting the balcony of the first floor. To the west is the blacksmith with his leather apron, to the east metallurgy is represented by the tongs.
The ground floor is occupied by three interconnecting reception rooms that open onto a hallway decorated with wood paneling decorated in faux marble with a mosaic floor.
To the left after the entry there is a small living room decorated with a white fireplace in Louis XV style. The blue ceiling is decorated with trompe l'oeil roses.
Two double doors lead to the "Grand Salon" with ornate woodwork and a black fireplace, a painted ceiling with a plaster rosette.

Religious buildings

The town is in the Catholic diocese of Saint-Étienne, part of the Ecclesiastical Province of Lyon.
The parish of St. Mary Magdalene Gier covers ten communes and has fifteen churches.
The commune of Rive-de-Gier has two parish churches.
The Church of Our Lady of Gier, built in the early 19th century, is registered in the inventory of historical monuments including its interior.
The Evangelical Church of Gier has a place of worship in the city.
The Muslim Cultural and Socio-cultural Association has a Muslim prayer room in the Grand-pont neighborhood.

People associated with the commune