1911-1940

Paper, wood and cravats

Klikkaa kuvaaDespite being strongly stamped as a town of schools and culture, many kinds of industrial activity have been practised in Jyväskylä and its vicinity since the early stages of the town. The factories were relatively small and they represented numerous industries without there being a clearly dominant industrial plant among them.

Jyväskylä was not considered to be an industrial town of particular worth, even though the close of the 1800s in Finland was a period of industrial breakthrough.

Klikkaa kuvaaThe Korkeakoski sawmill and alcohol factory, the Kuokkala sawmill, and the Lohikoski papermill were the biggest industrial enterprises in the district. However, none of them was located within the town itself, but within seeing distance of it. Before and after the turn of the 19th century, Fredrikson’s hat, cravat and glove factory, located along the Kirkkotori market square in the middle of the town, was the single biggest industrial establishment in Jyväskylä.

Klikkaa kuvaaThe situation underwent a total change in 1912 when Wilh. Schauman’s Faneeritehdas Oy (plywood mill) was built by the shore of Lake Jyväsjärvi fronting the town. In 1920 the value of the plywood mill’s production was ten-fold that of the town’s second biggest manufacturer Fredrikson and bigger than the combined worth of all the other industrial plants in the town.

Arms factories away from the threat of bombs

Enlargement of large-scale industry came in the 1920s and 1930s when the armament industry of the Finnish Defence Forces was located in Jyväskylä and its immediate surroundings. Jyväskylä was considered to be a strategically appropriate place because it was located far enough from the eastern frontier considering the enemy’s flying radius and also far enough from the western coast. Connections to and from Jyväskylä by rail, by road and by water were good and there was enough industry there already to ensure that the supply of labour and housing was sufficient.

Klikkaa kuvaaThe first to be built (in 1922) was a gunpowder factory at a distance of a little over ten kilometres from the town in Vihtavuori, local district of Laukaa. The second was the State rifle factory built in 1927 in Tourula and lastly, the gun factory in Rautpohja in 1936. These factories were of considerable economic significance to the town. Particularly the gun factory significantly eased the post-depression situation.

The mere building of the factory and the residential area adjacent to it provided work for 700 people and the factory itself employed 1,000 people at the end of 1940. The town had a population of about 9,000 at the end of the 1930s.

The gun factory was the only one of these new metal-industry factories to be actually located within the town limits. The rifle factory was located at a distance of a few hundred metres from the town limit and only one kilometre from the town centre. Equally close, on the opposite shore of Lake Jyväsjärvi, in the rural commune of Jyväskylä, was the Pori match factory.

Klikkaa kuvaaThe Kangas papermill, a powerfully developed old industrial plant, was located along Tourujoki River at the town limit. It and the rifle factory became part of the town following territorial rearrangements conducted in 1941. The industrial significance of the district of Jyväskylä was enhanced by the SOK industrial complex that evolved in Vaajakoski, eight kilometres from the town, and the factories in Säynätsalo and Tikkakoski were also fairly close.

The look and feel of a town

Klikkaa kuvaaThe traditional look of a town of wooden buildings began to change in the 1920s with the construction of the first blocks of high-rise buildings in different parts of Jyväskylä. The streets were being paved and horses gradually gave way to cars. Ship traffic, too, was to face the same fate as the constantly improving road network, the increase in the number of cars, and the completing of the rail track to Pieksämäki meant fewer and fewer passengers and less freight for the ships plying the inland waterways.

Finnish aviation history was being made in Keljonlahti where the Karhumäki brothers, gifted aviation experts, had their base.

Klikkaa kuvaaThe school world also changed. Jyväskylä’s recently founded primary school institution got its first school building in 1912 at the Puistokatu address and another school, the Cygnaeus School, was founded in 1925.

At about the same time, a third secondary school, the coeducational lycée, was founded to complement the educational offering of the lycée and the girls’ school. The most significant change took place in 1934, when the teachers’ college became the Pedagogical Institute. The efforts to have a university established in the town had their beginnings in the launching of summer university education as long ago as in 1912.

Klikkaa kuvaaIn the fields of sports and culture, Jyväskylä has introduced two lasting concepts into the public consciousness, the Finnish version of baseball and the architect Alvar Aalto. A matriculant from the Jyväskylä lycée, Alvar Aalto set up his first office in his hometown in the autumn of 1923 soon after completing his architect’s studies. He designed several buildings in Jyväskylä and its immediate surroundings at that time and in later decades.

Boys from the lycée and the teachers’ college served as guinea pigs when Tahko Pihkala developed the Finnish version of baseball in the early 1920s. It became Finland’s national sport.