Tysse
🏘️ Town Nord Hordaland Fjord

Tysse

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60 minutes
Tysse is the administrative centre of Samnanger. It's a small place today, but it has an interesting industrial history.

In 1886, a woollen factory opened here, using the waterfall on the Tysseelva river for power. Within a few years the factory employed 400 people and transformed Tysse from a quiet farming area into a bustling community with shops, cafés and lodging houses.

Then on the night of 6 March 1931, the whole factory burned to the ground.

Ten years later, a new company moved in: Safa Fabrikker, which became Norway's largest specialist sock manufacturer. At its peak in the 1960s, they employed 260 people. The socks are still sold under the Safa brand, though production moved to Lithuania in the late 1990s. The company still has its warehouse and headquarters here, and they run their own small hydroelectric plant.

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