Finn Hall

Kirjallisuus Seura means literary society, and the board says plainly that the Finns who built a hall here in 1916 left some of the old country's beliefs behind. Read the line about reflecting on new theological insights. The word theological is cut into a separate patch of wood let into the board, and in a 2005 photograph that patch is blank. The plate at the foot lists five placers, the settlers' descendants and the Woodland Bicentennial Committee among them. The road beside the wayside still carries the hall's name.

What the plaque says

The Finn Hall In 1916 Finnish immigrants constructed a hall near this site under the name of a literary association (Kirjallisuus Seura), forming a lending library. Although they brought their diet, language, and saunas with them, some old country beliefs were left behind. These people found it necessary to meet where they could study the social customs of their new country, challenge and question partisan politics, and reflect on new theological insights. At this cultural center were held language classes, meetings, athletic activities, wedding dances, funerals and programs with oratory, drama, poetry, vocal and instrumental music. Steaming kettles of coffee and the warmth of dignified waltzes, pulsating polkas and schottisches brought togetherness to these rugged individualists. Life to them was involvement. Erected by Descendants and friends of Finnish settlers Woodland Bicentennial Committee Washington State Highway Commission Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission Cowlitz County Park and Recreation Dept.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Vancouver Village — 22 mi
  The workers' town outside the Hudson's Bay Company stockade, where Hawaiian, Iroquois, French-Canadian, Scots and Native families lived side by side.
• Vanport — 24 mi
  Briefly Oregon's second-largest city, built in about 110 days for Kaiser's shipyard workers, washed away in an afternoon in 1948, and later renamed out of existence.
• Coldwater Lake — 32 mi
  A lake that did not exist before 8:32 on the morning of May 18, 1980, below the ridge where the geologist David Johnston radioed his last words.

More markers nearby

• Fort Vancouver — 10.0 mi
• Thomas McKay — 16 mi
• Vanport — 24 mi