Raahe

Before the establishment

The area of Raahe was originally a part of the parish of Saloinen, known until 1913 as Salo. It was one of the first parishes in northern Ostrobothnia.

Seventeenth-century history

Count Per Brahe the Younger, the governor-general of Finland, gave a charter to the town of Salo (not to be confused with Salo in Finland Proper) in the year of 1649 with the purpose of constructing a town at Satamakangas, near the old harbour site. However, the harbour area had become so low that the future town was decided to be transferred. A new and better location was found further to the north, at the bay of Raahe. Having acquired the possession of the parish of Salo in 1652, Per Brahe renamed the town Brahestad or Raahe in Finnish.

The planning of the town for the purpose of building Raahe was given to the surveyor Claes Claesson. His town plan followed the ideals of the regular grid plan of the Renaissance. All of the streets of Raahe were of equal width of 20-21 cubits or 10–11 meters. The market square stood by Rantakatu and the Town Hall behind the square. At the northeast corner of the town stood the church and the schoolhouse. Six blocks were realized of the town plan, i.e. the area surrounded by present-day Koulukatu, Kirkkokatu, Saaristokatu and Rantakatu. The later expansion and changes of the town have held the ambitions of Claesson's town plan in respect until the beginning of the latest century.

The oldest picture still remaining of the town of Raahe, a seventeenth-century drawing, dates back to the year of 1659. It depicts the town as being surrounded by a so-called customs fence with two custom gates, the eastern one located outside of the crossroads of present-day Brahenkatu and Reiponkatu streets and the southern one at the end of Pitkäkatu street (present-day Kauppakatu street) approximately by present-day Koulukatu street. The busy harbour of the town was located on the shore by the customs warehouse, the present museum.

There were two public buildings in Raahe: a handsome, admirable, two-story town hall with a tower, and a wooden church, whose construction had already begun in 1651. The church was given a weather boarding already in 1684-1685. This is one of the earliest examples of boarding known in Finland.

The dwellings and houses were made from logs. As a rule, they were built close to the street facing plot boundary, the long side and the ridge of the roof parallel to the street. The unbuilt portion of the plot against the street was fitted up with a high, solid plank fence and a drive-in gate. The plots inside a block were not separated by fences. The average house usually consisted of one or two rooms, most of which were of the two-room cabin type. Almost every house in the drawing of Raahe has the most remarkable novelty of the seventeenth century, the chimney. At the same time it was still quite common to have whole towns and villages with chimneyless houses, especially in Eastern Finland. Considered from the point of view of architectural history, at the time of its foundation Raahe was a quite modern town. As far as is known today, no buildings exist from the seventeenth century.

18th century

The Great Northern War, fought in the first two decades of the 18th century, and the Great Wrath nearly destroyed the town. In 1705, the population had been 641, while after the war this had decreased to 134, and the majority of the merchant class had escaped the war to Sweden. The town slowly recovered after the war, and trading started again. Raahe was given the right to international trade in 1791, which further enlivened the town's traffic and commerce. Goods such as tar, boards, tallow, butter, and fur were traded through Raahe, and improved road connections increased the competitiveness of the harbour.