Qualla: Epe, North Rhine-Westphalia

Epe, North Rhine-Westphalia: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Qwertzu111111, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the surface, Epe looks like exactly what it is: a village of around 16,000 people in the Borken district of North Rhine-Westphalia, ten kilometers east of the Dutch border city of Enschede, set on the gentle banks of the Dinkel. There is a park, a few churches, the brick remains of textile mills that closed decades ago, and a town twin across the border with an exact Dutch namesake. None of which prepares you for what is happening 900 to 1,500 meters beneath the surrounding farmland.

Image: Qwertzu111111 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Epe, North Rhine-Westphalia: An Old Name for an Old Place

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jessicajoins, CC BY-SA 4.0. Settlement here goes back to the late Neolithic. Weapons, jewelry, and pottery dated between 2000 and 1700 BC have been found in the area, and now sit in a museum in Münster. The village itself first appears in the historical record in 1188, when Count Hendrik van Dale of Diepenh...

Image: Jessicajoins | CC BY-SA 4.0

Epe, North Rhine-Westphalia: The Looms and the Spinning Mill

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edson Hiroshi Aoki, Public domain. In 1875 the railway arrived, connecting Epe via Gronau to Dortmund. Six years later, the Laurenz brothers from Ochtrup built the first textile factory in town - a weaving mill with 500 mechanical looms. In 1897, the Jannink family from Enschede founded the Germania Epe cotton spi...

Image: Edson Hiroshi Aoki | Public domain

Epe, North Rhine-Westphalia: A Memory the Village Maintains

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Luthermütze, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the night of 9 to 10 November 1938 - the night the Nazi regime called Reichskristallnacht - the synagogue on Wilhelmstrasse was desecrated and set on fire. The Jewish families of Epe - the Pageners, the Eichenwalds, the Lebensteins, the de Wittes, the Rothschilds, the Andriess...

Image: Luthermütze | CC BY-SA 4.0

Epe, North Rhine-Westphalia: The Caverns Below

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jürgen Loos, CC BY-SA 4.0. Geology, as much as history, defines modern Epe. Beneath the village lies the Lower Rhine salt pan, and since the mid-twentieth century the Salzgewinnungsgesellschaft Westfalen - a joint venture of Solvay, Vestolit, and Bayer - has used a technique called solution mining to extra...

Image: Jürgen Loos | CC BY-SA 4.0

Epe, North Rhine-Westphalia: What Is Stored There

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 4.0. Those caverns have a second life. Together they hold over 2.5 billion cubic meters of working gas, making the Epe complex one of the largest underground natural gas storage facilities in Europe. Uniper, the former E.ON Ruhrgas, runs the largest share. Innogy, the former RWE, runs...

Image: Michielverbeek | CC BY-SA 4.0