History

Old industrial region

Puhos is an old indus­tri­al region, as the first sawmill already oper­at­ed there in the 18th cen­tu­ry.  Gabriel Wal­le­nius, known as “The King of Kare­lia” estab­lished a sawmill in Puhos in 1780, attract­ed by abun­dant hydropow­er, good traf­fic con­nec­tions and brisk trade.

Nils Lud­vig Arppe lift­ed Puhos to its unique glo­ry with sev­er­al indus­tri­al plants in the 19th cen­tu­ry.

Old tra­di­tions gave rea­son to believe in the suc­cess of the mechan­i­cal wood pro­cess­ing indus­try in Puhos in the 1970s.

This led to a wide-rang­ing indus­tri­al process that pro­duced near­ly a thou­sand new jobs in ten years. This was soon called the “mir­a­cle of indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion”.