Petäys – History and Interesting Facts
Artefacts from the Bronze Age and Iron Age have been found in the area, suggesting that Petäys and Tyrväntö have been inhabited for centuries. Until the late 18th Century, Tyrväntö was called Kulsiala. The name Kulsiala comes from the Finnish word kulsi, which literally means a sacrificial bowl. There are several sacrificial sites form the Bronze Age in Tyrväntö. The oldest finding suggesting settlement in the area is a whetstone found in Piilosaari, near Tyrväntö. The whetstone was used approximately 2000 – 1600 B.C.
There have been mansions in the area since the Middle Ages. In the late 1800s, Petäyksenniemi was a popular place among the youth, where they used to spend their time playing games etc. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, villas started to appear in Petäys, when the Swedish-speaking gentry from the city started spending their summers in Tyrväntö.
During the 1910s, Major General Medical Suolahti came to Petäys. At that time, there was a villa at the headland. Right next to the villa, there was a sauna and a beautiful bathing hut at the end of the pier. People came to the villas at the beginning of summer, bringing their servants with them. They usually spent the whole summer at the villa. It wasn’t rare to have a small farm. The Suolahti villa was by no means the only one in the area, there were at least three more. The closest villa to Suolahti was the so called Puromies villa. Further away was Piispanhuvila (“the Bishop’s villa”), where the Bishop of Tampere Jaakko Gummerus used to spend his summers.
Eino Suolahti’s career a military doctor turned the whole area into an “area of soldiers”. Next door to Suolahti, lived the Finish war legend, colonel Valo Nihtilä. Suolahti’s wife, Anna, was a skilled violinist, who organised several cultural events with her neighbours.
