It is the site of Mespelbrunn Castle, one of the most famous landmarks of the Spessart region, and of the Wallfahrtskirche Hessenthal, for more than 700 years the destination of a Christian pilgrimage.

The foundation of the villages Hessenthal and Neudorf (after 1939: Mespelbrunn) was the result of settlement activities in the Spessart by the Archbishops of Mainz and the Counts of Rieneck, respectively.

In the Middle Ages, the Elsava valley and Hessenthal were located on the juncture of two important long distance trade routes, the Via Publica through the Spessart to the Main crossing at Lengfurt (today a part of Triefenstein) and the early-medieval Salzweg from Worms.

[4][5] The west-east route from Aschaffenburg to Würzburg gained in importance in the 18th century, resulting in the establishment by Mainz of a fortified road through the Spessart and an overland mail station at Hessenthal around 1800.

A further point of interest is the three-naved Wallfahrtskirche Hessenthal [de], a pilgrimage church, in the Ortsteil of Hessenthal featuring: The chapel, which was where the pietà was originally kept, is located around 1 kilometer northwest of the Wallfahrtskirche close to an intersection of two ancient roads: the Salzweg from Worms and the Via Publica from Brussels to Prague (the local stretch connected Aschaffenburg to Würzburg).