ÖSTERREICH	AUSTRIA
Bundesland: Vorarlberg
Bezirk: Dornbirn

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Dornbirn is situated at an elevation of 437 m on the Dornbirner Ach in the Rhine valley at the foot of the Bregenzerwald mountains. With a population of about 46,90 Dornbirn is the largest town of Ausria's federal state of Vorarlberg (larger than the state's capital, Bregenz). The town is also Austria's largest town that is not independent from a district and the country's tenth largest town. Dornbirn is the administrative seat of the district Dornbirn.

The oldest archeological finds documeting the presence of humans dates from about 8000 to 3000 BC. The oldest written mentin referring to Torrinpuirron, a document of the monastery of Sankt Gallen, dates from AD 895. The name can roughly be translated as 'settlement of Torro' and thus has nothing to do with "pears" (German "Birnen"), although this fruit is prominently portrayed on the town emblem. During that period the place was under the influence of the counts of Bregenz. In the ensuing decades the ownership changed to the Bregenz line of the counts of Montfort, later to their Feldkirch line. In 1380 Dornbirn became part of the Habsburg possessions. In 1391 it was mentioned for the first time as Dorrenburren. From the mid-14th until the 15th century the counts of Ems (today Hohenems) obtained substantial parts of the Dornbirn domains. In 1654 Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Austria-Tyrol sold Dornbirn to the counts of Ems. However, the townspeople resented this and raised the sum of 4,000 guilders to and thus the archduke could cancel the contract. In 1771 the Dornbirn burghers finally purchased the remaining Ems possessions of their domain, which still today is celebrated annually as the 'Loskauf von Ems' ('the redemption from Ems'). In 1793 Dornbirn obtained the privileges of a market town. Following the Peace of Pressburg (Bratislava) between France and Austria in 1805, Dornbirn became part of the kingdom of Bavaria and returned to Austria only in 1814. In 1901 Dornbirn finally obtained the status of a town and thus became the fourth city with this status in Vorarlberg (after Bregenz, Dornbirn and Feldkirch, followed by Hohemems in 1983).

The picture on glas no. 2995 shows a view of the Hotel Weiss which was built by Josef Weiss in 1886.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornbirn, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornbirn; https://lexikon.dornbirn.at/Hotel-Weiss-Bahnhofstr-24.10362.0.html, http://www.vol.at/dornbirn/historischer-rundgang-durch-die-innenstadt/3206856]

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