Salina Post proudly presents Flashback Friday in partnership with the Smoky Hill Museum. Enjoy a weekly tidbit of local history from the staff at Salina Post and the Smoky Hill Museum as we present "Salina-Flashback Fridays."
By SALINA POST
Founded by Civil War veterans, the town of Falun remained a staple in the Saline County community since the 1860s. The small Swedish community pushed through trials and hardships from the last century, including an upheaval of almost the entire town.
Swedish settlers first arrived in the Falun region in the early 1860s, and in 1869, Maj. Eric Forsse brought 40 more Swedish immigrants to the settlement from Illinois and purchased a farm.
Forsse served in the American Civil War after immigrating from Sweden to the United States, so English was Forsse and the other settler's second language.
According to the Smoky Hill Museum, Forsse recognized the importance of learning to read and write English for himself and his fellow settlers, so they quickly opened a school and hired Miss Susie Cooley.
Forty adults attended Falun's first class of students, all there to learn their new country's language.
The Missouri Pacific Railroad built a line through the small community in 1886, and the following year, the founders of the Swedish town finally incorporated Falun, Kan.
From there, the town boomed as it headed into the new century. Blacksmiths, hardware stores, restaurants, doctors, and a drugstore opened alongside the Falun State Bank in 1905.
Prosperity continued in the early 1900s alongside the other small settlements until the 1930s, when the drought and Great Depression severely impacted Falun.
There was not much relief for residents after the Great Depression, though — as World War II raged in Europe, Camp Phillips sprung up and swallowed most of Falun's farmland.
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The U.S. Army selected 44,000 acres in Saline County for the new training site, including land in Falun, Smolan and Brookville.
A notice from the military reached residents in June 1942, and by December of the same year, the army had completed Camp Phillips.
According to the Smoky Hill Museum, the construction uprooted many homesteads, forcing families to move within weeks, and only two years later, in 1944, the army decommissioned the camp and returned 12,000 acres to rural Saline County.
Through the years of hardship for the town, its leaders stayed hopeful. Ernst Pihlblad, a pastor of the Falun Luther Church in 1943, encouraged his congregation to hold pride in the small community's sacrifice.
"We have paid a high price, however, without a whimper, realizing all the time that it is not too high for what we hope to buy, lasting peace," Pihlblad said.
Today, Falun continues its long history in the Saline County community. The town's population peaked at 200 residents in 1910, but today, about 83 people call Falun home.