Wolfstein, Rhineland-Palatinate
Wolfstein was founded in 1275 on Habsburg King Rudolph I's orders, which called for a “fortified and free” town near his castle, “Woluisstein”, now known as the "Alt-Wolfstein" (“Old Wolfstein”) ruin. Rudolph forthwith granted the new town the same town rights and freedoms as the town of Speyer. As an “everlasting marketplace”, it was to be a sanctuary for commerce, trade and dealing. The first townsmen and -women came from the surrounding, much older villages.
Wolfstein, Rhineland-Palatinate
Spreading out from the old town (known as the "Flecken", meaning “market town”) in the hollow, the settled parts of town lay in the 19th century on the slopes between the Tauchental (dale) and Schlossgasse (or Obergasse – a lane), on the narrow strips of land either side of Lauterstraße (or Untergasse) and on Hauptstraße (“Main Street”, but in an outlying neighbourhood). Worth mentioning are several old buildings in Wolfstein: the Evangelical church (1868, beside the town hall), the Catholic rectory (1845, outside town centre), the Evangelical rectory (1899, outside town centre), the court and prison building (1902/1903, outside town centre) and the former "Kurhaus Lautertal" (spa hotel, 1862, renovated in 1912, outside town centre).