100 stories from the hiking route

1938 – Peak of the Peraküla sawmill

Information

Topic

Village life and society work

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 59.208317

Longitude: 23.62438

L-EST 97

x: 6563380.6
y: 478542.2

Location

Peraküla-Aegviidu Hiking route

Around 1912, August Targama together with his brother-in-law Toomas Koppelmaa established a sawmill in the yard of the Põlluotsa farm in Peraküla.
In 1934–1935, the sawmill produced a large amount of sawn timber on the order of AS Eesti Saeveskid, providing employment for a lot of people. The site manager was baron Traubenberg from the Piiumetsa manor. The logs were transported from the forest to the sawmill by horses. There was a storage area by the sandy bay where the sawn timber was stored. A roller conveyor was laid down by the seaside and about a hundred-metre bridge was built into the sea. The bridge was later nicknamed the baron’s bridge. The sawn timber was taken from the bridge by small boats onto a large steamer that was anchored in deeper water and that in turn delivered the cargo to England. As the local growing stock diminished so did the work volumes in the sawmill and everyday life began again.
In the early morning of 31 August 1938, the sawmill was destroyed in a fire. It was uninsured and the owners suffered great losses. However, August Targama and Toomas Koppelmaa immediately began building a new sawmill in a new location.
In 1940, the sawmill was nationalised and handed over to the fishing industry of the time. The sawmill stopped operating in 1960, after which the yard was used as a nutria farm. It has been an RMK information point since 2003 and now also operates as the RMK Nõva visitor centre.