A Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Levéltár évkönyve 22. 1995 (Debrecen, 1995)

Tanulmányok - Balogh István: A városépítés első korszaka Debrecenben (1850-1872)

in the town. On the main street some storeyed bourgeois houses and two restaurants were the most considerable buildings.

The town was divided into six districts based upon the six main streets; the administrative tasks of lower level were executed by captains, corporals and ten-houses masters elected by the inhabitants of the streets. From such duties the most important was to prevent and as far as possible to hinder the conflagrations causing big distractions. The supply of drinking water was assured by wells dug up outside of the town; sewage was drained in open canals of the streets having no paving to the direction of south-west following the natural slope of the streets.

The beginning of development of the town infrastructure can be estimated to 1853. At that time János Csorba was appointed mayor by the central government and he created the first building regulations, organized the fire prevention, provided the main street with wooden pavement, made clear the underground sewers and open canals became silted and organized the transport of rubbish of public domain even at the beginning of his activity. With his help started the building of the theatre and the foundation of the economical teaching institute (Pictures 8-9).

In the decades following the 1848-49 Hungarian War of Independence commenced the powerful development of bourgeois mentality of the modem age. The claim of bourgeoisie brought about the development of public lighting, road traffic and town planning. In 1857 was built the railway line of Pest - Debrecen - Miskolc (Picture 6), and in 1863 the gasworks (Picture 5). After the building of the steam mill working since 1847 (Picture 1) and of the town brickworks, for advance of public and private building the second industrial works, the sugar works founded in 1861 was also built (Picture 7).

The financial crisis of the year of 1873 hindered the public and private building for a while. The town infrastmcture and the town planning followed from that time, namely between 1880 and 1900.

74 Városépítés első korszaka Debrecenben