The famous aviation pioneer August von Parseval was born in Frankenthal in 1861. The house, where he was born, is located in the Speyerer Street No. 50, a classical building erected in about 1815 with a shop built in in the late 19th century.
Since the turn of the century the successful constructor had developed non-rigid taught airships, the so-called “Parsevals” which were built on a shipyard in Bitterfeld. Parseval died in Berlin 1942.
The town’s oldest residential building still preserved is the Forthuber House in the August-Bebel-Street, named after his architect, which was built in the second half of the 18th century in 1765.
It is a single-storey, symmetrical plastered building with a mansard roof and a sandstone structure, recently renovated by conserving the external appearance.