Today's Geyerhammer Museum originally consisted of two independent scythe works: the factory at the Alm bridge, also called "Pieslinger Hammer", and the factory above the Alm bridge, later called "Geyerhammer".
Both were founded by the evangelical Baron Helmhart Jörger VIII between 1585 and 1588 in addition to other scythe works. He purchased Scharnstein as free property of the emperor and built the Nurse's House, which was established on the “Schafferleithen” after the big fire in Scharnstein Castle and made it today’s “Schloss Scharnstein” (Scharnstein Castle or alternatively Neuscharnstein Castle).
Through the centuries, the two scythe factories were owned by various Hammerlord dynasties. The factory on the Alm bridge belonged to the Pieslinger family for several generations. In 1881 it was bought by the Viennese entrepreneur and banker Max Reitzes, who held his summer residence in Scharnstein and was significantly involved in the municipal office relocation of Viechtwang to Scharnstein. Reitzes used the former place of honorable work as a "temple of the muses“ before it was sold to the Redtenbacher company and united with Geyerhammer in 1897.
The factory above the Alm bridge was owned by the Kaltenbrunner family for a long time. In 1850 Johann Geyer acquired it from the sawmill (today named “Sagbauer”) and ran it as an independent scythe factory until 1881. Since that time, it has been called Geyerhammer. For economic reasons, Johann Geyer had to sell it to “Simon Redtenbacher seel Wwe & Sons” (blissful widow and sons) company in 1881. When the production of scythes was decommissioned in 1987, the community bought the ensemble in order to preserve the production facility as a monument to the 400-year tradition of making scythes in the Almtal.
Scharnstein and Viechtwang’s cultural and local history association founded the existing scythe museum and the event location from 1991 to 1997 in these buildings on its own initiative.