Gries, Germany - Economy and Infrastructure - Economic Structure

Economic Structure

In days of yore, the then farming village of Gries knew only the occupations that any place thus characterized needed, namely the crafts: blacksmith, cabinetmaker, tailor, shoemaker. There was also an inn. Then the Lebecksmühle (mill) became part of Gries; this was named the “Wolfsmühle” in 1712 after it was inherited by a Mr. Wolf. It is likely that the mill is much older, although an exact age cannot be determined. Later in the 18th century, the mill passed to the family Lebeck, who gave it the name that is still customary today. As early as the late 19th century, the mill was shut down; it later served as a countryside pub. Shops that did not necessarily have anything to do with agriculture began arising in the early 20th century: a roofing business, a butcher’s shop, painting businesses, hairdresser’s shops, grocer’s shops, a bakery, a bicycle and motorcycle shop and more inns. As mentioned above, people from Gries were then already commuting to work in the Saarland. Among the bigger businesses that arose in the village itself in the 1920s and 1930s, though, were a few diamond-cutting shops on the pattern of the diamond-cutting village of Brücken, which also enjoyed a brief second boom after the Second World War, but this did not last beyond 1950. The shops and crafts that were once customary in all villages have largely disappeared. Other businesses have taken their place, and today, the following shops, craft workshops and institutions are to be found in Gries: a business dealing in heating system and bathroom instalation, a flooring business, a roofing business, an excavation business, a painter’s workshop, a tile layer’s workshop, an architecture office, an institution for foot care and a Heilpraktiker. The inn industry has gained new importance with Gries’s emergence as a tourism centre.