Its history is tightly bound with the stone quarries that were established there beginning in the 1870s. Between 1922 and 1924, the then owners of the quarries, Basalt-Actien-Gesellschaft (a company that is still in business today, based then, as now, in Linz am Rhein and known as Basalt AG for short), built a workers’ settlement for quarry employees, the "Kolonie", out of basalt stones. The complex is still fairly well preserved. Owing to the great number of schoolchildren (all together 25 of them in seven grades in 1952), a school was set up at the "Kolonie" in 1952 in a purpose-built building, thus sparing the children the daily walk to the village and back. The school was, however, dissolved in 1965 owing to school reform. Since the quarries were closed in 1970, the population figure on the Schneeweiderhof has been steadily shrinking; more and more flats are now unoccupied. On the other hand, the Schneeweiderhof is popular among hikers and daytrippers from the local area, if only to make a stop at the local inn. Eßweiler owes its current shape mainly to the time that followed the Thirty Years' War. It was built as a linear village (by some definitions, a “thorpe”) stretching along Hauptstraße (also known today as "Landesstraße" 372). In the village core, where the Breitenbach and Jettenbach meet to form the Talbach, another road, Krämelstraße, branches off as "Landesstraße" 369 to Jettenbach and on towards Landstuhl. Also in the village core stands the Protestant church, built in 1865. Next to it were the old school building and the old village hall, which was renovated and expanded in the 1960s. As early as 1935, the former "alte Schul" (“old school”) was supplemented with a new school building on the road leading out of the village towards Oberweiler im Tal. The village core was given a makeover in the 1980s when a new village square was laid out. Eventually, in the years 1994–1997, a village community centre was built right on this square. Leading out of both the former and current village core is the street “Im Läppchen”, the part of which on the Talbach's right bank is known even today as the "Judengasse" (“Jews’ Lane”), a reference to the once important Jewish sector of the population in Eßweiler.