Photo: Västgöten · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Boxholms bruksmuseum

Works museum in Boxholm's mill from 1777 on the history of the ironworks since 1582, with nail production, steam engines and an electric locomotive outside.

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About the museum

Boxholms bruksmuseum is housed in Boxholms kvarn (mill), which was built in 1777 and is the oldest surviving industrial building in the locality. The pink facade is original. The museum is run by a foundation formed in 1987 by Boxholm Municipality, the länsmuseet i Östergötland (Östergötland County Museum), what is now Ovako, Boxholms skogar and Boxholms AB.

The exhibition follows the history of the works from 1582 onwards, when Bocksholms säteri (manor) was bought by Arvid Gustafsson Stenbock. Among the museum's pride is a runnable model of the wood-fired steamboat Boxholm II and a machine for making cut nails.

Outside the museum stand objects from iron production: a rolling mill for wire manufacture, where two rolling-mill workers made of welded-together pieces of flat iron show how melted blocks were rolled into wire; a Lancashire hearth; a mumbling hammer; and a steam hammer. There is also an electric locomotive from 1918 with a crane wagon and a freight wagon. They ran on the Lönnabanan, which carried goods from the works to Boxholm railway station and which in 1890 was the first line in Sweden to be electrified. The line was narrow-gauge, with a track gauge of 891 millimetres, and was in operation until 1968.