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The town of Crnomelj with its old center is situated on the promontory in cramped loop of the rivers Lahinja and Doblicica at an altitude of 156 m above sea level. Prehistoric and medieval archeological sites witness that the area had been inhabited very early. In the very heart of the town the remains of a settlement and a burial place dating from the iron age and some old Slavic graves dating from the 10th and 11th centuries were discovered. The first clear historical data on the town go back as far as 12th century. On the same place where the Stonic house now stands, Oton Kraski built a castle and call it Crnomelj in 1165. The castle was a residence of knight's order which settled here and called itself the Crnomelj Lord. In 1277 the settlement around the castle was promoted to borough which acquired city rights in 1407. Naturally fortified, surrounded with a strong wall, the town was inaccessible to the Turks, who had been attacking it from 1408 to 1578, but had never been able to conquer it. According to historians, a golden age of welfare lasted up to the 16th century. In the town there were soldiers, trade thrived, burghers and local residents could make big profits. When the Karlovac Fort was built and Vojna krajina established, Crnomelj lost its strategic significance. The army moved to Karlovac and with them the prosperity of the town vanished. The town and its surroundings were stricken by plague, cholera, fires, locust and famine. The town slowly declined. In 1809 Crnomelj was occupied by the French only after the French soldiers had been driven off. They remained in the town until 1813. After their departure the inhabitants had to fulfill the French plans of civilization and prosperity themselves. In 1890 a new elementary school was built. Before classes were held in various houses. Trade and industry flourished during all this time. Economy developed even faster when railway Novo mesto - Karlovac was opened in 1914. Nevertheless the whole area explicitly rural until the Second World War. In 1940 a kind of secondary school was established. In the spring of 1944 the first Slovene partisan grammar school was founded. Numerous monuments and memorial plaques remind us of the fact that during the Liberation War in Crnomelj, a liberated town in free Bela krajina, there were a number of political, scientific and cultural institutions. A new Slovenian statehood was established in Crnomelj. The Liberation War Monument on Gricek, a hill above Crnomelj, was erected in memory of 1250 fallen soldiers and victims of the fascist terror in Bela krajina in the second world war. After the liberation the town began to develop culturally and economically. Mechanical engineering, woodwork, food and textile industry were founded. There were also some new and already existing cultural and educational institutions. All that resulted in an increasing urbanization. Crnomelj became an industrial, communication and culture center with around 6000 inhabitants. 'How the Town Crnomelj Got Its Name'
The legendary miller presented by the academic painter Robert Lozar Once upon a time there was a
miller who lived in the center of a town. He was a very selfish man and
he thought only of himself. One day, a fairy brought him some
grain to be milled. The miller did not realize who he was speaking to
because the fairy had disguised herself as an old woman. She had brought
him the finest richest grain he had ever seen. Never in his life had he
milled anything of this quality. The miller was filled with greed and he
decided to deceive the old woman. He kept the good grain and milled for
himself the finest flour in the world, and for the old woman he milled
some rotten black grain that produced awful black flour. He gave
this black flour to the old woman and sent her on her way. When the
fairy realized that she had been cheated she was
Some cultural and tourist
sights of the town:
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