Vihavuoden mylly- ja sahayhdyskunta

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

Vihavuosi is one of the oldest known mill sites in Häme. Milling activity in the cadastral villages of Hauho has existed in the rapids since the Middle Ages. A small sawmill community has grown up around the sawmill established in the early 20th century.

The mill yard is located on the east bank of the Vihavuosi rapids. The mill is one of the few surviving log mill buildings in the municipalities of Kanta-Häme. The mill yard complex also includes the miller's residence and outbuildings.

The Vihavuosi sawmill, much younger than the milling activity, is located beside the mill. The power plant and its brick chimney have survived from the sawmill. The workers' residential buildings closely associated with the sawmill are located on the west bank of the rapids.

History

The earliest known information about the Vihavuosi mill dates from the 15th century, when it is recorded that mills were operating in the rapids already in pagan times. In the early modern period five mills are recorded as having been in the rapids. In the 19th century the rapids held the lahkomyllyt of the central villages of Hauho parish, Vitsiälä, Hauho and Sotjala, as well as the mills of the Perttula rälssitila and the Nikkari farms. The Rekola mill, that is the mill of the Sotjala lahkokunta, is the only one of the mills along the rapids to have survived. The mill building is reportedly from the 19th century.

Until a water-powered single-frame sawmill was built on the riverbank in 1923, the Vihavuosi rapids had only mills. In the early 1960s a new sawmill plant was built beside it, which also produced electricity. At its best the sawmill employed 200 people, and the village that grew up around the sawmill had three shops. The sawmill was closed in 1985.

The village of Vihavuosi was at one time a popular summer retreat for artists. The mill yard and the riverside scenery were captured in, among others, paintings by Yrjö Yrjölä, Yrjö Ollila, Mikko Oinonen and Anton Lindfors. The poet Yrjö Jylhä also lived periodically in the village of Vihavuosi. Remote in relation to the settlement of the parish, Vihavuosi was for hundreds of years an important mill site, and later, in the 20th century, a small sawmill industrial settlement. Nowadays Vihavuosi is busiest in summer, thanks to fishing and summer residents.