The works in the town

In the mid-nineteenth century the old mining company at Stora Kopparberget was transformed into a modern enterprise. The old smelting houses were abandoned and closed in rapid succession. The over twenty smelting houses along the Faluån River, between the Magasinsbron and Kvarnbron bridges, were among those that survived longest. The last, called Gamla Herrhyttan, just north of the Hanröbron bridge, was demolished in 1881.

At the start of the 1860s, the Bergslaget company had formed a new joint works and started building up larger new factories to apply more modern methods to the production of metals from the ore and refine them into other products such as copper vitriol and iron vitriol. Several of the plants, including the Extraction Works, the Copper Vitriol Works, the Copper and Zinc Smeltery, were built north-west of Hanröbron. Beside the Zinc Smeltery is a 25 m tall chimney, built of cast slag blocks. The chimney was built in 1878-1879 and was initially 60 m tall, but because of subsidence in the soil it began to lean dangerously and had to be shortened.

Here by the river there is also a silver smeltery. It started in 1790 after King Gustav III had granted permission two years previously. Silver smelting took place in a former copper smeltery, known as Sofrebrukshyttan, in 1790-1853, when a new silver smeltery was built at the western abutment of the Kvarnbron bridge. After this smeltery had burned down, the present Silver Smeltery was built of slag blocks in 1884. Silver and gold were produced here until 1920. The annual average production during this time was about 250 kg of silver and roughly 100 kg of gold.

At Hanröbron a small power station was built of brick in 1899 and above it a storehouse made of slag and a wooden gatehouse painted in Falun red with a belfry for a bell to call the workers for their meals. Further into the area Bergslaget built its Central Laboratory in the 1920s. In the north-west part of the area an acetic acid factory was built in 1910.

The Stora Kopparberget Foundation owns and manages the Silver Smeltery, the Copper Vitriol Works, and the Zinc and Copper Smeltery. The buildings are together known as the Town Works (Stadsbruken) and are listed as historic monuments.