Tidaholm
Tidaholm is a locality and the seat of Tidaholm Municipality in Västergötland Province within Västra Götaland County, Sweden, consisting of 520 square kilometers, or a little more than 200 square miles. It is located on the Tidan River, the only river in Sweden that flows north. Two islands are included within the municipality's limits: Vulcanön and Turbinhusön, the former was originally Tidaholm's industrial center and the latter historically housed the Turbine. As of 2021, there were 13,000 inhabitants.
History
Historically, the city was known as Agnetorp. Tidaholm was detached from Baltak parish as a merchant town in 1895. In 1910, it was established as the city of Tidaholm, and it has served as the seat of the much larger Tidaholm Municipality since 1974. In 1997, its county name changed as well, when Skaraborg County merged with the counties of Gothenburg, Bohus and Älvsborg to form Västra Götaland County.Up until the early 19th century, Tidaholm was primarily a farming community but, in 1799, an ironworks factory was established on the site of the Holmagården forge, which had roots dating back to the Middle Ages, and merged with several other business to manufacture furniture, wagons and agricultural implements. Nearly a century later, one of the bicycle-making Lindström brothers spent time in the United States, studying the early car industry. Once he returned to Sweden, the Tidaholmsbilen was the result, with most of the parts made at Tidaholms Bruk, especially once local engine production began in 1914. Between 1903 and 1934, the factory produced about 6,000 cars, mainly trucks, buses, fire trucks and other heavy vehicles. Known as "Tidaholmarna," they were seen as far afield as Oslo and St. Petersburg.
In 1868, the Vulcan match factory, was founded on Vulcan Island, one of Tidaholm's islands in the Tidan River. Although it was started with a little over 100 workers, by the early 1900s, it had become the largest manufacturer of matches in the world, and was employing more than 1,000 workers. Nowadays, Vulcan Tidaholm is the only remaining match factory in Sweden, with roughly 200 employees. Although the Lithographic Art Workshop has taken over its former headquarters, it carries on Tidaholm's tradition of the lithographic arts that began with the design of intricate matchbox labels.