The first wood structured paper mill that G.A. Serlachius had built began its operations in 1881. The mill was destroyed in a fire in 1890.

In 1893, a new, fireproof paper mill, built out of brick and reinforced concrete, took the place of the one lost in the fire. Three 84-inch paper machines were ordered for the new factory from the Karlstad Mekaniska Verkstad company, Escher Wyss & Co., and Bell & Co. The paper machine from the Swedish Karlstad factory was the first it had produced and the Stockholm press proudly reported about its operations in Mänttä. The press wrote, “It runs as light and smooth as a damsel tiptoeing along the streets of Stockholm”. In addition, the latest newcomer to world technology in turbines were ordered from America. Production consisted of wrapping paper, stretching paper and bag paper.

The Mänttä paper factory was in superb condition when G.A. Serlachius died in 1901; production rose to nearly 5,000 tons in a year.

The paper factory continued at this extent of operations, practically unchanged, until 1911.

A new stone-structured groundwood mill was built in 1889. Because the building survived the 1890 fire, the production of raw materials in the new paper mill was guaranteed. The new groundwood mill had four grinding machines and its technical advisor was engineer Axel Mauritz Hedbäck.

When the cellulose factory was built in Mänttä in the 1910s, the groundwood mill was no longer needed. It was torn down in 1931 and a hydropower plant was built in its place.

G.A. Serlachius evidently built this building at the end of the 1870s or in the beginning of the 1880s. At first, the building was used as a sawmill and mill. Later it apparently housed grinding machines also.

The building was torn down in the beginning of the 1920s.

Swedish architect, A.E. Melander, designed G.A. Serlachius’ new home, the Mänttä Castle, in 1878. After the fire in the paper mill, the stones already being used for the castle’s foundation were used to build a new factory instead. Construction on the castle was postponed until the 1890s. The castle was finally completed in 1896. According to the original plan, the castle should have been larger than it was. The commercial counsellor’s old home, “Mill Cottage”, was connected to the castle as an outbuilding.

G.A. Serlachius lived in the castle until his death. The castle was the heart of the social life of Mänttä’s elite; a place that aroused the curiosity of the common folk of Mänttä. They could peak through the fence to see how “the other half” lived. The castle received new residents in 1913 when Gösta Serlachius and family moved back to Mänttä. Gösta Serlachius did not particularly enjoy living so close to the mills, however, and planned to relocate further away from them.

The 1910s brought with it the intention to convert the castle into a place for offices and in 1918 the Palmqvist & Sjöström architect’s office was asked to draw up blueprints for it. The plans were never fully carried out, although the building was used for office space for a short time. The castle was finally torn down in 1939 to make way for more factories.

Built in the midst of the rapids, the summerhouse to the Mänttä Castle was one of the town’s most romantic places. It was built long before the castle in connection with Serlachius’ home, Mill Cottage.

The Koski House, i.e. the “Jurvelius Palace”, was built in 1885 for commercial counsellor G.A. Serlachius’ children to live in. Engineer Vladimir Jurvelius and his wife Thyra Jurvelius, G.A. Serlachius’s daughter, settled in the downstairs of the house while the upstairs was given to the commercial counsellor’s son, consul A.E. Serlachius.

“Jurvelius Palace” and the life lived there offered the people of Mänttä occasion for wonder, just as the castle had. Jurvelius’ parrot never ceased to amaze the people, especially since the young boys taught it how to say vulgar words.

Later, after the Mänttä factories had become a limited company (Ltd.), mill manager Julius Boedecker, among others, took up residence in the house.

The house was used for other purposes during a time of crisis in the1910s. During the factory’s lockout, it was used for a dining area for the workers who had come to replace the strikers and, in 1918, the civil guard stationed their headquarters there. Later, it was given to the company’s highest officials for living quarters.

Completed in 1883, the horse stable was designed by G.A. Serlachius’ son, Axel Ernst Serlachius. The stable comprised a separate training stable and a work stable. Horses used on trips and the commercial counsellor’s steed horses and ponies were housed in the training stable. The work stable housed, at times, over forty work horses.

Commercial counsellor Serlachius often organised spring fetes for his employees. The Helsinki Kaartinpataljoona (Guards battalion) orchestra also played in the stable.

With the coming of motorised vehicles, the stable lost its significance during the 1920s at the latest. However, it remained in its place for a long time.

An outbuilding built in connection with the Koski House.

When shop-keeping came to a close in the old office building in the beginning of the 1890s, it once again was used exclusively for the company’s office space. The offices of commercial counsellor G.A. Serlachius, Axel Ernst Serlachius, and other officials were located in the building. Mänttä’s first telephone exchange, with a total of 20 numbers, was located in the building as well. The exchange had connections to Vilppula, Ruovesi and Tampere.

At this point, the building had somewhat changed shape—it had to be narrowed to make way for a train track at the end of the 1890s. New changes were made when expanding office operations demanded more space. Architect Valter Thomé designed blueprints for the needed changes in the building in 1908.

The office was torn down in 1934 when the company’s new head office had been completed on the shores of the Koskelanlampi.

The central warehouse for the G.A. Serlachius Oy company was built at the end of the 1890s. The building was used for storing the raw-materials used in the factories.

Mänttä was located far away from large cities and travelling to and from the cities was difficult. This led G.A. Serlachius to organise food services at the factory. A green house, which was called “rekooli”, was built at the factory. A flower shop was also built there. The grounds were a beautiful sight with all its flower beds and other flora.

The green house had to be taken down later when the train track was built, but the flower shop remained in operation for a long time.

The log sauna built in the 1870s was used for the last few times during the year 1901. The superiors of the company decided to tear it down to make way for a new brick sauna.

The building was completed in the 1870s and used for the drying room of the old groundwood mill. When operations at the groundwood mill became insignificant, it was made into a woodworking shop. The company’s own carpenters worked in the shop.

This building contained the factory’s paper warehouse. Goods were loaded directly into vessels carrying the factory’s paper in Kuorevesi.

The building still functioned as a school and “cultural centre of Mänttä” where various events were organised. Its significance naturally decreased beginning in the 1910s and 1920s when the Community Hall became the cultural centre for the workers and the company built the Clubhouse, a bourgeois pivot of social life.

The school was torn down in 1937. Before it was destroyed, the building was also used as a police station and jail.

Haarala was built to house the company’s supervisors in 1880. The building was torn down in 1935.

The building was completed around 1886. At first, it housed G.A. Serlachius’ parcel pin factory. It then housed Heikkilä’s apron factory and lastly G.A. Serlachius Oy company’s paper bag factory. The building’s moment of culmination was in 1928 when it was used as a showroom during the company’s 60th anniversary celebration.

The building was torn down in 1934 to make way for the company’s new main office.

At the end of the 1870’s, Aatu Färm, G.A. Serlachius’ former smith, built a shop and his house on a hilltop he rented from the Koskela estate. After Färm died in 1888, his widow, Agatha Färm, continued the business and later his son-in-law, Adolf Pohja.

Färm’s heirs built several additional buildings around the shop.

The Mäntän kirjapaino Oy printing house moved into the Färm house after Pohja passed away. The printing house began operations in 1926.

Plevna and Karssi were the first real type houses for workers that G.A. Serlachius had built in 1880. The buildings were named after battlefields in the Bulgarian war of independence (Russo-Turkish war) during the years 1874-1878. Soldiers who had returned from the Balkan military expedition worked on the construction site.

Each building had ten large, bright rooms with the owens. The residents were content because the houses were located near the factory and the view out to the Koskelanlampi, or the Saunalahti (so called at the time), was beautiful.

Karssi was destroyed in a fire soon after it was built, but Plevna remained on the shores of the Koskelalampi pond for many decades.

Living-quarters for the workers built in 1890.

G.A. Serlachius had his own narrow-gauge railway (track width 60 cm) built for the Mänttä factories in 1879. The factory owner sought to better the services to Vilppula and in 1897 had the track extended to reach between Mänttä and Vilppula.

Service from Mänttä to Vilppula continued on the narrow-gauge railway until 1929 when the government built a normal track between the two villages.

In 1880, G.A. Serlachius and his employees established Mänttä’s “fire-extinguishing department” which, after having been a few years in operation, called itself the Mänttä VPK (the Mänttä volunteer fire-brigade).

Serlachius donated all the necessary equipment for fire-fighting. Since they had no real fire station at the time in Mänttä, the equipment was kept in a storage shed built near the rapids and paper mill.

The “lautakonki” was built in the beginning of the 1880s for pedestrians walking on the road next to the paper mill’s fence. It ran from the company’s office to the bridge over the rapids.

Completed in the 1850s, as housing for the Mäntän Saha-Yhtiö company’s workers this building was still in use. An outbuilding had been built next to it but at this point its status as housing for the ‘better employees’ began to deteriorate when the company had new houses for the workers built further from the factories.

The building was torn down in 1937. Some of the building’s timber was used to build the Rusinniemi houses for workers and some of it was used to build Ahola, a house for the company’s gardener. Ahola is located near the present-day fire station.

Completed in the 1850s, this building was still in use as housing for the Mäntän Saha-Yhtiö company’s workers. It was torn down in 1936.

The storehouse for the sawmills living-quarters had been taken back into its original use when shopkeeper Hoffren built his own shop nearer to the Mänttä estate.

Shopkeeper Hoffren built these premises for business in 1892. A separate building near the main building comprised a bakery, barn, and stable.

G.A. Serlachius bought the building later and it was given the name Kerhola.

Living-quarters for the workers, completed in 1895.

Built in the 1870s, these living-quarters for workers were used as a school for a while.

Rantala was built around 1883. The company managed a small 12-bed hospital, where 200-300 patients were treated annually. Most of the patients were first-aid patients from the factory who needed treatment for accidents having occurred while working.

A hospital for treating epidemics that was completed in the year 1883.

G.A. Serlachius had bought the Mänttä estate in 1888. Constructing housing on the east side of the rapids gradually then became more systematic and it offered more opportunities for expanding the factory area on the isthmus.

In the beginning of the 1900s, the Mill Manager’s living-quarters, designed by Birger Federley, were built using parts of the old house.

Hannila was apparently built at the end of the 1800s. Its history is not known.

The shape of the building in the scale model is typical of the time, but fictitious.

Knowledge about the drying barn has been obtained from old documents and maps. Its shape in the scale model is typical of the time, but fictitious.

After G.A. Serlachius had succeeded in buying the Mänttä estate in 1888, he began to build the factory’s living-quarters for workers on the estate’s land on the east side of the rapids. A two-story, ten-family house, called Tammela, was completed in the same year. It was Mänttä’s largest workers' house for a long time. The name Tammela may refer to workers from Tampere who were housed in the building.

Tammela was renovated in 1926 and 1928. Plans for renovation were drawn up by architect W.G. Palmqvist.