Historical milestones
15th century - first written report on production of iron in Rotava and surrounding iron mills.
1549 – Entry in the Town Book of Jindřichovice about sale of the Rotava iron mill domain
1597 – The year referring to the “Roravian tinned iron"
1616 - The beginning of production of bar - flat - iron
1636 – Recorded use the Rotavian tinplate for repair of the parish church in Sokolov
1660 - Count Nostitz gathered the entire iron production in Rotava and in Šindelové in his own hands
1757 – New blast furnace – relocated to Šindelové, meant further increase of the production Tin spoons were then sold across the entire Austria - Hungary.
1770 - Further growth of production of sheet metal, at that time the Rotavian tinplate was already known abroad.
1776 - 6 bar, 3 iron mills and one blast furnace located in Rotava. They made black and white tinplates. Besides those, they manufactured tools and iron spoons to be sold in the entire Austria, tubes, bakery ovens and other products.
1839 – Introduction of a new production method by rolling, the old production and former iron mills became to cease.
1869 - First use of steam to power the rolling mill.
1886 - Galvanizing introduced according to the English model which brought savings of tin and the first open-hearth furnace was built, modern tinning and galvanizing methods introduced.
1889 - Electric lighting and later electric drive of machines introduced
1909 - Fusion of the Rotavian – Nejdek iron works with the joint stock capital of 10 million of then crowns, increased in 1941 to 15 million crowns. This world known company delivered its products to Poland, Sweden, Russia, Romania, Italy, Germany and England. In addition, the iron works supplied
In the above year the production amounted to 1170 wagons of sheet metal and 600 wagons of bar iron.
The production at that time was 360.000 q of ingots that were processed in Rotava, Šindelové and Nejdek.
In 1910-1911 two steelwork furnaces were built, the production of ingots reached 7200 tons, 1700 tons of sheet metal per year. Rotava was the sole enterprise in Austria-Hungary producing canning sheet.
1913 – Building a power plant. At that time, 2170 wagons of sheet metal and 600 wagons of iron were produced.
1914 – Production expansion was accelerated by World War I.
The enterprise transforms to war production (canning sheet, cartridges and various components for artillery and charioteers).
The Rotavian sheet was also used to mint war nickels and iron dimes.
1916 - The Rotavian iron works cast a bell for the Church of St. Paul and Peter in Rotava.
After 1918 - Production re-oriented to peace purposes, searching for new markets for products abroad.
1928 – Conclusion of an agreement of production partnership with the Mining and Smelting Plant of Brno for the purpose of cheap purchase of necessary raw materials and semiproducts (so-called sinkers)
1929 – Volume of production of sheets – 270 thousand q per year, 70% of which were exported to abroad.
1931 - Production discontinued.
1938 – Commencement of production in rolling mills
1941 – War production (containers for anti-aircraft and antitank grenades, tips for grenades and other minor productions).
1945 – Production continues in the steel works
1946 – Production of 100 pieces of UNRRA wagons
1957 – Former Rotavian iron works are taken over by ŠKODA Plzeň (production of mining and foundry equipment, production of cranes for their own needs, production of technical equipment and supplies of casting for electric locomotives)
1966 – Initiation of production of rolling equipment
1975 – New production programme introduced: production of rubber equipment
1981 – Successful accomplishment of a new-type curing press design VL 60-180-120 awarded with Gold Medal as the best product at International Engineering Fair (MSV) in Brno.
1992 - Modern history begins by initiation of the activity of ROTAS STROJÍRNY spol. s r.o.
(With the consent of the author, the data and photographs of the book by Václav Kotěšovec „INSIGHTS IN THE HISTORY OF TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF THE KRASLICE REGION“ were used.