The mine is located in the Budišovka valley where a tourist restaurant used to be situated.

The original German name of this place “Waldfrieden” can be translated as “Forest Retreat”.

Historical data concerning the beginning of extraction and processing of cleavable slate in the deposit

are unknown, but we can roughly say these activities began in the half of 19 century, in particular in 1835, when the slate extraction started in the whole territory of the Moravian-Silesian Culm.

Till the end of World War II, the mine was owned by the local German old residents.

Thereafter, when the original German citizens were expelled, the mine was nationalized

and the extraction of the deposit was interrupted up to the seventies of the last century in which years

the extraction was again reestablished by the State Farm in Budišov nad Budišovkou”,

later transformed into the state-owned enterprise “Slate Mine in Staré Oldřůvky”.

However, only 10 - 20% of the blast rock gained during the explosion blasting in the tunnel was used

for cleaving, the rest was a waste to be bashed in the mine and remained there as such.

The day drift was more than 1 km long and 20 employees worked there at that time. In 1992,

prospecting for slate deposits in the north direction has been accomplished.

Thanks to almost perpendicular laying of the slate layers, that create an ideal arch,

the volumes of the chambers are the largest in the whole “Nízký Jeseník” region.

The slate in this locality is of a high-quality and it must be mentioned that it was used

for restoration of the National Theater roof in Prague.

After several changes in the owner the opening-up of the northern part of the deposit was commenced

in 1995.  In the new part several extractions were made; the mining was stopped in 2003.
Our company “Důl Radim a.s.” has purchased the mine in the year 2007 and focused on the technology

that is able to exploit all slate deposited in the mine, not only 10 or 20 % as in the past.

That is why our company has commenced construction of the slate processing industry plant

using the state of the art technique.  

Besides this activity our company extracts and sells the slate as building

and tiling material or traditional roofing material.