Nessonvaux (in Walloon Nessonvå) is a district of the Belgian municipality of Trooz located in the Walloon Region, in the province of Liège, along the Vesdre and the Pays de Herve. It was a municipality in its own right before the 1977 merger of municipalities.
In the 14th century, most of Nessonvaux belonged to the advocacy of Fléron. The hamlet grew from around 1500 around a forge: the Cour Monville.
Shortly after 1830, the coiled-ribbon damascened gun barrel appeared (ancestor of the Damascus barrel). A poor Protestant family from Nessonvaux who had emigrated to the United States, the Rigas, took a few barrels with them. They made their fortune by ordering more than 25,000 Damascus barrels a year during the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865.
Nearly all the flour mills were converted into gun-barrel factories by the Heuse family, and dozens of small forges sprang up around the forge hammers known as makas. The valley was completely transformed and became a true village.
It is above all for theImpéria automobile factory that the town is known in Belgian industrial history. If that era interests you, a RTBF documentary was devoted to it
