1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gérardmer

GÉRARDMER, a town of north-eastern France, in the department of Vosges, 33 m. E.S.E. of Epinal by rail. Pop. (1906) of the town, 3993; of the commune, 10,041. Gérardmer is beautifully situated at a height of 2200 ft. at the eastern end of the small Lake of Gérardmer (285 acres in extent) among forest-clad mountains. It is the chief summer-resort of the French Vosges and is a centre for excursions, among which may be mentioned those to the Höhneck (4481 ft.), the second highest summit in the Vosges, the Schlucht, the mountain pass from France to Germany, and, nearer the town, the picturesque defile of Granges, watered by the Vologne, which at one point forms the cascade known as the Saut des Cuves. The town itself, in which the chief object of interest is the huge lime-tree in the market-place, carries on cloth-weaving, bleaching, wood-sawing and the manufacture of wooden goods; there is trade in the cheeses (géromés) manufactured in the neighbourhood. Gérardmer is said to owe its name to Gerard of Alsace, 1st duke of Lorraine, who in the 11th century built a tower on the bank of the lake or mer, near which, in 1285, a new town was founded.