Cs.Sebestyén Kálmán - Szvircsek Ferenc: Salgótarjáni új almanach 1. (Salgótarján, 1997)

VI. TRADÍCIÓ ÉS KULTÚRA - 12. Rezümék

reached the fame thanks to its mines. The view of the town shows the different periods of its architecture during the decades of capitalism. But it could only get the official rank of the town just after the Treaty of Trianon (1920) when Salgótarján was one of the most important industrial and mining centres of the remaining country. On 27 January 1922 it was appointed to a town, and from 1929 Salgótarján got a rank of a county town together with Balassagyarmat. The real process of urbanisation started during the time of its first mayor, Kálmán Förster. The Main Square, the market place in front of the new railway station became the centre of the town. The original centre of the village with the Catholic church and the old mansion started to lose its importance as the town hall and the new colonies were built far from them (in the territory of the previous market place). This new suburb, so-called Újtelep, was the first planned and organised part of the town. After 1900, when the nearest mines had to close down the company started to build a new housing estate at the southern part of the town. The glassworks and the iron foundry were established there, too, but this part of the town was not planned well. The nothern part (Újtelep) with its modern buildings and well designed streets remained a model for the later periods. After the World War II. the authorities understood that it was impossible to plan and build up a totally new city centre in such a narrow valley so they made a reconstruction plan using the available sources. The work started very slowly because of its inadequate financial support. In spite of this in 1950 Salgótarján was appointed to county town for mainly economical, geographical and political reasons. Between 1960 and 1977 several surrounding villages were annexed to Salgótarján in order to become their administrative centre. Thanks to these changes the total number of its inhabitants reached 50,000 people in 1983.