Kreuznach

Kreuznach grew around a crossing of the Nahe in the Rhineland. Its stone bridge, built around 1300, joined the old and new parts of the town. Houses on the bridge are recorded in 1495, and the crossing remained a vital link between the two banks.

The Reformation reached Kreuznach in 1556 through a church visitation ordered by the Elector Palatine Ottheinrich. The Thirty Years' War brought changing occupations, and French troops destroyed much of the town in 1689 during the War of the Palatine Succession. In the revolutionary era Kreuznach again came under French rule; its saltworks and river crossing remained important features of the town as political authority changed.