Orivesi (formerly also Orihvesi) is a Finnish city located in the
province of Pirkanmaa. The city has 9,101 inhabitants and covers an
area of 960.08 km2, of which 160.43 km2 are water bodies. The
population density is 11.38 inhabitants / km2. Orivesi's neighboring
municipalities are Juupajoki, Jämsä, Kangasala, Kuhmoinen, Ruovesi
and Tampere. A large proportion of the locals call themselves
stallions. The municipality of Orivesi was founded in 1869. The
union of municipalities of Orivesi and Eräjärvi took place in 1973.
Since the beginning of 1986, Orivesi has been a city. At the
beginning of 2007, part of the municipality of Längelmäki was merged
with Orivete.
Orivesi belongs to the historical province of
Satakunta. Otava's Small Encyclopedia from 1927 mentions Orivesi in
Eastern Satakunta.
The Orivesi Evangelical Lutheran Church
belongs to the Diocese of Tampere. The local newspaper Oriveden
Sanomat is published in Orivesi, and its distribution area also
includes Juupajoki and Längelmäki.
Early history
A few dozen so-called Discovery of
objects during the culture of Suomusjärvi, which shows that hunters
and fishermen moved in the area early on. The bronze or Iron Age
finds, on the other hand, are not known, so the Orivesi region may
have been an uninhabited hinterland of the people of Kangasala. In
the Middle Ages, settlers from some Kangasala villages moved to the
area. The first mention of Orivesi as a parish, either as an
independent or as a chapel in Kangasala, dates from 1466 in
connection with a border dispute dealt with in the district. The
Orivesi Priest, among others, appears in the district minutes.
Orivesi is first mentioned as an independent parish and parish
in the 1540 land register, according to which there were 56
tax-paying houses there. Längelmäki and with it Kuorevesi separated
from Orivesi in 1593. A regular so-called locker's mail route passed
through Orivesi from 1598 onwards.
The first statesman to
come from Orivesi was Jaakko Juhananpoika Kråkfelt, who cultivated
Vetterkulla. A few years later, the greatest catastrophe in Orivesi
history to date occurred, with about one in three inhabitants, 766
people, dying in the great famine of 1697.
In 1727, Orivesi
held its first private market and it was organized until 1801, when
it was abolished. In 1741, a parish hall was built where councils
could be held. In 1776, Orivesi and its neighbors were transferred
from the counties of Turku and Pori to the newly established county
of Häme. Orivesi Fifth Church, the so-called Orivesi old church,
completed in 1781. The church belfry was built in 1783-1793.
19th century
In 1860, Orivesi's first merchant, Alfred Grönfors,
opened his shop in a church village. In 1868, steamship traffic
began on the Hämeenlinna – Orivesi – Länkipohja route. The
municipality of Orivesi was founded in 1869, when the municipal
board and the head of the municipal assembly were elected in
Orivesi.
In 1870, the first municipal board was elected in
Eräjärvi and the first municipal meeting was held and the Orivesi
namesake district was established. In 1872, the first primary school
in Orivesi, the Kultavuori school in the church village and the
Kirkonkylä library began to operate in the church village.
Orivesi's first post office was opened at Orivesi station in 1883,
originally under the name Orihvesi. In the same year, the first
agricultural exhibition in Orivesi was held at Kultavuori School.
The first private telephone in the locality was acquired by the
merchant Wilhelm Grönfors in 1887, and the following year the postal
banking business began.
The first municipal doctor was
admitted to the municipality in 1895. In 1898, a post office and the
Orivesi telephone association were established in the church
village, and the first shoe factory in Finland (founded by Edward
Wallenius) in Korkeakoski.
20th century
When the army of
the Grand Duchy of Finland was disbanded at the beginning of the
20th century, the former barracks of the 27th reserve company of the
Hämeenlinna sniper battalion, which had been training in Orivesi
until the end of the 19th century, were handed over to the leprosy
hospital. Orivesi Leprosy Hospital was in operation from 1904 to
1953, while Orivesi Municipal Hospital had started operating in a
rented apartment in 1902.
Orivesi's first sports and
gymnastics club, Orivesi Ponnistus, was founded in 1908. In 1909,
Orivesi Retirement Home began operations, and Orivesi College began
operations as the Keski-Häme Folk High School in Länkipohja. In
1910, the college moved to the church village of Orivesi and a
workers' house was built.
In 1911, the Hirsilä shoe factory
began operations and Juho Nisula wrote the first Finnish-language
local history of the Orivesi area, Piirteitä Eräjärvi parish. The
first car in Orivesi was acquired by Kustaa Ala-Sahra from
Sahrajärvi in 1912. The municipality of Juupajoki became
independent and resigned from Orivesi in 1913.
In 1918,
during the Civil War, Orivesi was the scene of fierce battles. The
Reds held Orive for a couple of months. On March 18, 1918, the
whites, led by Colonel Karl Fredrik Wilkman (Wilkama), took over the
Orivesi railway station, but had to retreat, forced by the Reds who
attacked by armored train, and the Reds, who had withdrawn from
Vilppula, fled to Tamper. The White Forces finally captured Orivesi
on March 20.
Oriveden Kenkätehdas Oy and Kuusisto's footwear factory began
operations in 1918. In 1919, the first municipal councils of Orivesi
and Eräjärvi began operations, and Orivesi's first municipal clerk
began his work. The Karelian shoe factory began operations and
Oriveden Sähkö Oy was founded.
The Orivesi Municipal Library
began operations in 1921. In 1923, the Orivesi Municipal Hospital
was completed in connection with the Tähtiniemi Retirement Home
Hospital. The Orivesi co-educational school began as a private home
school in 1924. In 1926, the village of Siitama was merged from
Kangasala to Orivesi, Oriveden Sanomat began to appear and Auvinen's
house was built in the church village of Orivesi. In 1927, the
Orivesi Telephone Association became Oriveden Puhelin Oy.
In
the 1930s, the Orivesi Co-educational School building (1931), the
Paltanmäki Open-Air Museum (1934) and the first modern plastered
brick residential and commercial building in Orivesi Church Village
(1937) were commissioned. Ensi Oy 's shoe factory began operations
in 1937.
During World War II, there was an infantry training
center in Orivesi. After the Continuation War, the Valkjärvi migrant
population was settled in Orivesi and Orivesi developed into a
remarkable service center in Northeast Pirkanmaa. In 1946, Orivesi
Co-educational School became the leading university and the upper
secondary school began operations. The Orivesi Regional Citizens
'College (originally the Orivesi Workers' College) began operations
in 1947.
In the 1950s, the Orivesi municipal semi-permanent
fire brigade (1951) and the Orivesi water supply cooperative (1955)
were established. The Orivesi-Jämsä railway line was opened to
traffic in 1952. In 1953, the new main building of Orivesi College
was completed, in connection with which the Klemetti College was
also opened. The new municipal hospital and the Rönn dance floor
were completed in 1957. The old church in Orivesi was destroyed in a
fire in 1958.
In 1961, the first mayor of Orivesi began his
work and the elementary schools in the side villages were closed. In
the 1960s, the Orivesi Arch Church (1961), the Vocational School of
the Orivesi, Eräjärvi, Juupajoki, Ruovesi and Längelmäki Municipal
Associations (1962) and the art exhibition Purnu (1967) designed by
Professor and sculptor Aimo Tukiainen were introduced. The first
building plan for Kirkonkylä was completed in 1966. By the end of
the 1960s, the church village and station area had grown into one of
the municipality's largest agglomerations, where more than half of
the municipality's population lived. The development of the area was
also facilitated by the improvement of transport connections in the
1960s and 1970s.
A new, much faster route on Highway 9 to
Tampere was opened to traffic in 1972. The Orivesi and Eräjärvi
municipal unions took place in 1973. In 1974, the Orivesi Regional
Public Health Association's health center began operations and
municipal day care began. Orivesi entered the primary school system
in 1975. Orivesi was once known for making footwear and was called a
shoemaker. In the 1970s, the municipality had a total of six shoe
factories, employing more than 500 people and producing about 4,500
pairs of footwear a day, which accounted for ten per cent of the
total production of the Finnish shoe industry.
In the 1980s,
a new nursing home (1981), a new main health station (1982) and a
sports hall (1988) were opened. From the beginning of 1986, Orivesi
became a city.
The Orivesi ice rink was completed in 1997.
2000s
In 2005-2014, Orivesi hosted the Hole Edge Film
Festival, which included a film competition, domestic and
international feature films, short speeches by filmmakers, music and
art exhibitions.
From the beginning of 2007, part of the
municipality of Längelmäki was connected to Orivete, part to Jämsä.
At the beginning of the 2010s, Orivesi had financially difficult
years. In 2013 and 2014, social security costs increased rapidly, as
a result of which taxation was tightened in 2015 as part of an
extensive economic rebalancing program. With the program, the
direction changed, net expenses decreased by more than four percent
and the financial statements were positive. A significant change was
the start of SOTE co-operation with Tampere.
The Orivesi
College, which has been operating in Orivesi since 1910 and focused
on art education, transferred its education to Tampere in the summer
of 2018. The college was maintained by the Support Association
(1909-1946), the Folk Education Society (1946-2014) and the Ahlman
School Foundation (2015-). During the summer, the college housed the
Klemetti College, where choir singing, choir conducting, solo
singing and pronunciation courses were held.