Established in 1872, it was one of several major mining sites in the heavily industrialized Ruhr district in northwestern Germany during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

By 1884 the shaft had become the deepest in the Ruhr area at 624 m. Ewaldstrasse was eventually built on the other side of the Malakow tower from shaft 1, but he plans for the mine site changed and so the lettering on the tower ended up being placed on the wrong side to be visible to travelers on the road.

At the time colliery was located far from other developments, and due to the lack of manpower, only daring individuals could be recruited to work underground.

The compressed gas was fed to the specially built motor-driven thermal power station owned by Stadtwerke Gelsenkirchen and used to generate electricity and heat.

In order to compensate for the loss of jobs and economic power associated with the closure of the mine as soon as possible, RAG Mountain Immobilien GmbH (formerly Mountain-Grundstücksgesellschaft mbH (MGG)), together with the city of Herten, founded "Project group Ewald" in 1999, while the mine was still in operation.

It provides for the areas of service, education, small-scale and large-scale business including a marketplace as a meeting point for the newly settled entrepreneurs and their customers.

The redesign of the area is based on a 2002 design by the architects Cino Zucchi, Martin Halfmann and Peter Köster.

The defining element of the redesign is the historical layer with some listed colliery buildings and the old shaft frames, which are visible from afar as “lighthouses.” This area is via a system of squares and paths with the newly designed Ewald connected promenade, which extends from south to north parallel to the naturally designed drainage canal, called familiarly "the Blue Ribbon," over the entire site.

In October 2009, a visitor center was opened where one can explore new uses of hydrogen as an energy carrier and fuel cell technology.