Helios Tower

Coloss of Rhodos, Helios-Statue The Helios Tower was made for the Helios AG (before Gesellschaft für elecktrisches Licht und Telegraphenbau Barthel Berghausen und Cie, also in Ehrenfeld), which was founded 1882, short after the young Ehrenfeld got the rank as a city. The enterprise lived till 1905 and was bought then by the Allgemeine Eliktrizitätsgeschaft (AEG) in 1905. Local production endured till 1930, employing at its best time about 2000 workers. After 1930 the great working hall of the Helios AG was used as "Rheinlandhalle" and served beside other interests as place for the famous Sechs-Tage-Rennen (six-days-races with bicycles).
The Tower was used for experiments with electric light, but had also representative function. With its height of 44 meters it serves nowadays as a memorial for the phase of early industrialization. It greets the bypassing travellers on the railroad between Cologne and Aachen. The name of the enterprise was chosen after one of the first seven world wonders, the coloss of Rhodos, which used a statue of the sun god Helios as light house.