A good two hundred years ago, an interesting chapter in Belgian history began. After the Napoleonic Wars, Europe was reorganised in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna. However, there was a small corner of land some 3.4 square kilometres in size, between the Netherlands and the Prussian Rhine Province, on which the victorious powers were not able to reach agreement. In the area around Kelmis, there were deposits of calamine, a kind of zinc ore that was important for the industry that was beginning to flourish at that time. Finally, the two parties just drew a few straight lines on the map, leaving a triangle that they declared an area in dispute: the village of Moresnet went to the Netherlands, what is now Neu-Moresnet went to Prussia, and the remaining area (including what is now Kelmis), with its zinc mine, was given neutral status. The laws of the former French Empire remained in force. For more than a hundred years, from 1816 to 1919, Neutral-Moresnet constituted an oddity of European history.
Taxes were low and they continued without increase for decades. There were many distilleries and there was a flourishing trade in alcohol, which gave rise to a lot of smuggling, since there were duties to pay on exports to Prussia and the Netherlands / Belgium. At first, the borders of Neutral-Moresnet were marked out with wooden posts, but they fell victim to weathering quite quickly and had to be replaced at regular intervals. So, in 1869 and 1870, they were replaced by 60 boundary stones. The stone markings were numbered I-XXX along the Belgian border, and XXXI-VX on the Prussian border. More than 50 of these boundary stones remain preserved until today, reminding us of this area which was once so special and unique.
In 1919, as a result from the Treaty of Versailles, Belgium assumed jurisdiction over the area. And so it was that on 10 January 1920, Neutral-Moresnet became the municipality of Kelmis.
