Sankt Julian, Eschenau, Obereisenbach and Niederalben (along with the vanished villages of Ohlscheid, Hunhausen and Grorothisches Gericht) quite likely had a jointly held woodland and a common, splitting these up among themselves only in the course of time.

Some rural cadastral toponyms, for instance "Pfaffental" (meaning roughly "Parson's Dale"), still recall a time when Sankt Julian was an important pilgrimage place, and perhaps also the seat of a monastery.

The village lies in the northern strip of its nominal area, meaning that farmers often had to walk up to 2 km to and from their plots, along with equipment drawn by horses, oxen or even cows.

[16] The broader area around Eschenau was settled in prehistoric times, bearing witness to which, among other things, are hammerstones from the Stone Age, which have also turned up in neighbouring municipalities.

While digging work was being done at the Klosterflur (rural cadastral area), workers struck some old walling made of limestone mortar, some thick bits of tile and a great number of potsherds and artefacts from Roman times.

In the formerly municipally unassigned cadastral area of Schwarzland northwest of Obereisenbach, nowadays part of the Baumholder troop drilling ground, cable layers unearthed two flat graves which also yielded up beakers, dishes, pots and a glass ring.

About 1290, a priest named Conrad worked in Sankt Julian, a well-to-do man who endowed a chapel to hold Saint Juliana's relics, which was built right next to the then Romanesque church.

The count's son, who later became Heinrich III of Veldenz, was married to Lauretta (or Loretta) of Sponheim, and the young couple had chosen as their residence Castle Lichtenberg.

[29] In the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era that followed, Sankt Julian belonged to the Mairie ("Mayoralty") of Offenbach, the Canton of Grumbach, the Arrondissement of Birkenfeld and the Department of Sarre.

While in the new territorial order arising from the Congress of Vienna the old Rhinegravial villages on the Glan's left bank were grouped into the Principality of Lichtenberg, a newly created exclave of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (which as of 1826 became the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), Sankt Julian, Obereisenbach and Eschenau were excepted from this transfer and grouped into the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1817 as part of an exchange against a village in the Oster valley.

In this rural community with a goodly share of workers among its population, there was a noticeable shift towards polarization of political groupings in the wake of the First World War.

Gumbsweiler belonged during Revolutionary, and later Napoleonic, times to the Mairie ("Mayoralty") of Hundheim, the Canton of Lauterecken, the Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern and the Department of Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in German), whose seat lay at Mainz.

[32] Obereisenbach's administrative situation after the French Revolutionary annexation was the same as Eschenau's and Sankt Julian's: it belonged to the Mairie ("Mayoralty") of Offenbach, the Canton of Grumbach, the Arrondissement of Birkenfeld and the Department of Sarre.

Just after the Second World War, there was an armed confrontation with some French occupational troops, who had been mistaken by the populace for "plundering Russians" who had been forced labourers, now freed, in the only just ended time of the Third Reich.

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Sankt Julian and Obereisenbach together, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:[34] Eschenau has remained rurally structured to this day.

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Eschenau, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:[35] Gumbsweiler was home to many farmers, though very early on there were also workers living in the village, and today they make up the majority.

[39] The village's name, Gumbsweiler, has the common German placename ending —weiler, which as a standalone word means "hamlet" (originally "homestead"), to which is prefixed a syllable Gumbs—.

That brought along consequences in the time after the Reformation when the Steward of Offenbach wanted to force Sankt Julian's pastor into the Zweibrücken Church Order, even though he was a Rhinegravial subject.

The organizer for this is Karl Ludwig, and each year's exhibit follows a theme, for example "Eschenau over Changing Times", "The Glan Valley from Altenglan to Lauterecken" or "The Municipal Ring".

Despite older villagers' misgivings, the first Rock im Kuhstall went smoothly, and the circle felt encouraged to found a club that would task itself with staging the festival every year.

A parade opens this village festival, led by a band, itself followed by the Straußbuben (standard High German for Straußbuwe) bearing the huge Strauß ("bouquet").

As described above under Regular events, this arose from a circle of youths led by a would-be organic farmer who first conceived the idea of the yearly rock festival.

The highlights since the club's founding have been the days-long trips to Berlin, to the Lüneburg Heath along with Heligoland, to Saxon Switzerland, to Locarno on Lake Maggiore, to Oktoberfest in Munich and also to the Harz.

In 1970, Südwestfunk (SWF, now part of Südwestrundfunk) Baden-Baden recorded a cycle of folksongs with choir and orchestra, and in 1971 the programme Schiwago auf dem Lande ("Zhivago in the Country") was broadcast from Mainz.

[65] In Eschenau, the villagers' cohesion defines a lively cultural life, borne mainly by the village's clubs, but foremost in Eschenau's cultural life is painter Dietmar E. Hofmann's Kleiner Kunstbahnhof ("Little Art Railway Station"), which has been earning itself national importance for decades with its permanent exhibits with Hofmann's own handiwork, which has surrealist tendencies.

The regional office (Bezirksamt) in Kusel registered in 1905 for Gumbsweiler twelve named farms that were run as primary income earners, fifteen craftsmen and businessmen, two grocery shops, two painters and two innkeepers.

The sandstone quarry in the Reuterrech, the slope on the dale's left side, was from 1831 let out to private interests by the municipality, earning major importance about 1900 when the railway line along the Glan was built.

From the villages of Horschbach, Elzweiler and Welchweiler, only the Hauptschule students were grouped into the school association, and of those from Ulmet and, beginning only in 1968, Niederalben, only grade levels 7 to 9 were incorporated.

This Hauptschule was attended by students from Offenbach-Hundheim and Sankt Julian and those from Buborn, Kirrweiler, Homberg, Deimberg, Glanbrücken, Hachenbach and Wiesweiler, and in the beginning also those from a few villages in the Verbandsgemeinde of Altenglan, namely the three Hermannsberg municipalities of Horschbach, Elzweiler and Welchweiler, along with Ulmet, Niederalben and Rathsweiler.

He received approval from the authorities to make the school barn available to a local fertilizer manufacturer, and he himself was allowed to take part in selling the products.