round in 1970. The first rail line into Brig was finished in 1874 and connected the town to the west by the Rhone Valley. The L�tschberg tunnel, which opened in 1913, connected Brig to Bern. When the Simplon Tunnel was built in 1906 and the second tunnel was added in 1921, it provided a year round, reliable rail link with Italy. In 1926, the Furka-Oberalp rail line connected Brig with Disentis in Graub�nden. The railway station was built in 1877-78, and was expanded in 1910 with a new building, which also serves as a freight station and border station. The 1910 station was expanded in 1957, 1961 and 1993. In 1859 a telegraph office was built in town, followed by a local telephone network in 1898.
As it became easier to travel to Brig, the tourism industry grew. The number of hotel beds in town rose from 120 in 1800, to 425 in 1912 and to 1,000 in 1993. By 2002 the number of beds had dropped to about 820. In 1858 a large sawmill was built in town. This was followed by other smaller industrial companies, including woodworking, pasta production, telephone apparatus, gloves and knitwear. The Brig-Naters power plant was built in 1900 to supply power to the towns and their growing industry. However, in the middle to late 20th Century, most of the industrial plants left Brig. In 1990, 81% of the work force worked in the services or tertiary sector of the economy. Only 18% worked in industry and 1% worked in agriculture. In 2001 there were 7,129 employees in Brig-Glis, working for 803 companies.
Glis
The oldest traces of human settlements around Glis were discovered in 1992 and included significant traces of settlements from the Bronze and Iron Ages. During the Middle Ages, Glis, Holz and Gamsen formed a municipality in the Zenden. Starting around 1320, the settlement of Wickert (now part of Glis) was a farming estate that belonged to the collegiate church of Sion. In the early 14th Century an earthen wall was built across the Rh�ne Valley at
