14th – 18th century Somebody's forest, nobody's homeNiečí les, ničí domov

Before there was a town there was a slope, and the slope belonged to somebody — to the Spiš and Liptov estates and to the towns in the basin below, which held it for timber, hunting and summer pasture. Shepherds brought sheep up in June and took them down in September; woodcutters and charcoal burners worked the lower forest; nobody wintered here. That is why this town has no medieval core to visit. Every settlement on this contour was founded on purpose, by a named person, for a stated reason, within the last two hundred and thirty years — which makes it one of the easiest places in Slovakia to watch history actually happening.Skôr než tu bolo mesto, bolo tu úbočie — a to úbočie niekomu patrilo: spišským a liptovským panstvám a mestám v kotline pod ním, ktoré ho držali pre drevo, poľovačku a letnú pašu. Pastieri sem v júni prihnali ovce a v septembri ich odviedli; drevorubači a uhliari pracovali v nižšom lese; prezimovať tu nezostal nikto. Preto toto mesto nemá stredoveké jadro, ktoré by sa dalo navštíviť. Každá osada na tejto vrstevnici vznikla zámerne, konkrétnou osobou a z konkrétneho dôvodu, za posledných dvestotridsať rokov — a práve preto sa tu dejiny dajú sledovať pri práci ľahšie než takmer kdekoľvek inde na Slovensku.