The River Zorn is the waterway over which the city of Saverne has been built. Coming from the mountain, it flows through the city alongside the Old Hospital, under the Railway Station Street, turns behind the Post Office, and leaves Saverne towards Monswiller. On this first postcard, you can see the little tower of the Post Office in the background. This view was taken upstream, from the bridge near the actual social and cultural centre. Notice the wooden floors over the water, left and right. They were used by the housewifes to make their washing. All these buildings, except the Streckturm, the tower of the old surrounding ramparts of the city, have now disappeared. They were pulled down when the bridge of the Paris Road and its access ramp were built, in 1935, over the railway. The river Zorn flows along the buildings of the Old Hospital, which was built in the middle of the 18th century. It became too tiny and, as the railway traffic grew very fast, which was unpropitious to the rest of the sick people, it was replaced just before the second world war by a new hospital located in the Saverne slope: the hospital complex of St Catherine. Once reused as an administrative building, the main building was finally pulled down in 1970. Next page [Back to start] [The middle city] [Railway Station and Post Office] [The Canal] © Thierry Heitmann - 1997-2001