Worker at Guty refinery during cleaning up of swamps

By 1894 Leopold Koenig had brought his refineries and his farms to the highest pinnacle of their development. To Guty and Trostianetz he had added over 20 new farms in the course of the years. That meant that the total land ownership of Koenig amounted to an area of 125 square miles with a perimeter of 45 miles. Of that, every square inch of land was put into productive use, and over 7.3 square miles of poisonous swampland had been converted into flourishing agricultural land. Overall, where earlier barren land or quicksand lay, where the sloping hills met the mud, where water runoff eroded the fertile soil, one now sees reforestation in various stages. And soon, the growing forest began absorbing the rain as well as protecting the soil from drying out in the dry season.


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