Nový Bohumín Settlement

Nový Bohumín, in German Neu Oderberg, was born of the railway. In 1847 a brand-new settlement grew up here on the land of the village of Šunychl, right by the station being built on the new railway line. The site was unusual: it lay in the middle of dense forests and marshes, which first had to be drained before anything could be built. The settlement's original name, Šunychl-Bohumín-nádraží (Šunychl-Bohumín-station), said plainly what it was for. Only on 14 April 1924 did the municipality receive its present name, and on 16 October of the same year the government of the Czechoslovak Republic raised it to the status of a town. In 2020 the district of Nový Bohumín had just under thirteen thousand inhabitants.

The hurried construction of offices, housing and workers' colonies left no room for striking architectural monuments or a dominant square. Even so, a number of interesting buildings have survived that tell the story of the town. At its heart are the station and the roundhouse of 1891, altered in 1984. The north side of today's T. G. Masaryk Square is taken up by the original town hall of 1897–1898, which after careful repairs has been returned to its original purpose. Next to it stands a complex of former German school buildings from 1894–1914, now the seat of the municipal office. Interesting religious buildings have survived as well: the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, consecrated in 1896, the Catholic parish house of 1905, and the Neo-Gothic church of the Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession of 1901 on Štefánikova Street (today 9. května Street). The historic building of the former Notre Dame convent from 1903 now houses the Bohumín Secondary School. The historical layer of the town is completed by the Skřečoň bridge of 1887, the historic steel footbridge of 1870 (extended in 1902) and the road overpass on Bezručova Street, ceremonially opened on 30 April 1964.

The place also bears traces of a military past. A garrison was established here in the autumn of 1923. When fortifications were being built before the Second World War, a second barracks was built on the edge of the town, in the village of Šunychl. From the early 1950s the barracks housed railway troops; their last 120 members left on 6 April 1994.

Today Nový Bohumín is an industrially active district, home to plants of Bochemie, Bonatrans, Czech Railways and Železárny a drátovny Bohumín (Bohumín Ironworks and Wireworks). Visitors and residents can get information at four information centres: in the municipal library, at the municipal office, at the railway station and in the Penzion ve věži (Tower Guesthouse) next to the indoor aquatic centre. Bohumín maintains ties with three Polish partner towns: Zdzieszowice, Prudnik and Grodków.