Latur is an old town with Historical and Mythological background. The book “Ratnapur Mahatmya” has a detailed insight of city’s history. The city was known as various names in the past including Satyapur, Shreepur, Ratnapur, Lakshapur etc.
The city has many Monkery and ancient temples. The idol at “Keshavraj Temple” is considered to be self generated. A replica of the idol can be found in National Museum at Delhi. The idol is supposed to be more than 2000 years old. The temple is Hemadpanthi is style which gives an idea about the age of the current temple being more than 500 years old. The Jain Monkery in Latur is more than 700 years old. The SuratShahavali Mosque adjoining is built up by Aurangzeb. The Gramdaivat Siddheshwar has a history of more than 500 years. The temple was renovated in 1910. Some stone inscription at the temple says about the age of the temple.
The city also has historical background, with Satvahanas and Rashtrakutas having ruled over the city. It was also a part of Ashoka’s empire. King Amogha of Rashtrakutas used to proudly call him “Lattlurvasiya” (Citizen of Lattlur).
In 1670 AD, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had visited the city. In Peshva times, “Laturi coin” was part of the currency. Thus Latur played very important role in history at every time span; the Satavahanas, the Sakas, the Chalukyas, the Yadavas of Deogiri, the Delhi Sultans, the Bahamani rulers of South India, AdilShahi, the Mughals and the Princely State of Hyderabad.
Latur has always been famous for business and training. The old business community used to stay In old Latur, towards the north of Khadak Hanuman. Lad was main businessman community in earlier times. Other businessmen communities included Brahmin, Maratha, Yalam, Jains etc. Later Lad community had some trouble with Nizam dynasty so Marwadis were invited from Rajasthan for business. Since then Marwadis are ruling the business community in Latur.
Lokmanya Tilak visited Latur in 1891 and initiated a Ginning factory. Latur got a name of fame in National market with this factory. A Vegetable oil factory was also subsequently started in Latur by Dalda, which was first Vegetable oil factory in Asia.
Barshi Light Railway (BLR) was introduced in 1911 which improved the transportation to Latur. The population was also increasing with the increase in business activities. World War I saw a stiff increase in the cotton rates and Latur Market got a higher place in Global market.
Later with time, the cotton industry saw a decline and Grain market got a rise. Today Latur is well known for the grain market and oil industries.
Latur was earlier part of Gunjoti Tahsil but looking at the glory of Latur, it got the status of Tahsil by Nizam government. Later on 15th August 1982, Latur got the status of District place. Latur was connected to Mumbai and Hyderabad via BroadGauge lines in 2004.
Latur has always been a progressive city and the progress route has never come on a backfoot in entire lifetime of the city. And we wish the progress will never take a back seat.

Tags: barshi light railway, BLR, dalda, ginning factory, History, latur, mythology, nizam, rashtrakutas, satvahanas, siddheshwar

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Know Latur, History, Know Latur. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.