Roman graves have been discovered in the vicinity of the ruins that go back to a Roman wayside station established at this spot. In 1534 a watchtower was first mentioned in the recorded and referred to as
die Klause, i.e. a narrow, primitive dwelling. It was destroyed in the
Thirty Years' War. The tower - and also the hunting lodge of
Kehrdichannichts only 600 metres away - were probably built by
John Frederick of Leiningen (1661–1722) initially to guard the boundary of the hunting grounds between Leiningen and
Electoral Palatinate, and then later expanded into a small
Baroque hunting lodge. They lie fairly high up on the southwestern ridge of the
Dreispitz; and enabled good observation of the hunting activities of their neighbours from Electoral Palatinate. They must have been either destroyed again or neglected, however, soon afterwards because by 1781 the hunting lodge and watchtower were recorded in a
Salbuch as the "Friedrichsburg ruins". By no later than 1793, when the
French Revolution had enveloped the
German regions west of the Rhine, the site was finally razed. A 1797 map first records its new name. In 1926 the walls were still five metres high. In 1963 the ruins were transferred from the oversight of the old
royal Bavarian forestry commission to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In 1988/89 the wall remnants, which only comprised parts of the exterior wall with window openings, and the base of the tower, were cleared of vegetation and debris and made safe. == Name ==