The place has been inhabited since prehistoric times, but the current town
arose from an old Slovak settlement, next to which newly arrived German miners
erected a typical square market in the early 13th century. The first written
evidence of the town's existence is dated 1265 when King Béla IV of Hungary
issued a charter for the hunters from the area of Liptov allowing them to use
woods around the settlement, known as Berezuno. The name is derived from
the Slovak word "breza" for birch. In the nineteenth
