Herrestads AIF

Uddevalla originally belonged to Norway and received its town privileges in 1498. It’s probable that the town was founded some time before that, but we have no proof about that. The Norwegians originally named the city “Oddevald”, which later became “Oddevold”.

Due to the town’s former proximity to Denmark and Sweden, as well as its strategic position, there were many wars in and around Oddevold. Oddevold has changed nationalities a total of seven times throughout its history. In 1658, Oddevold (and the rest of Bohuslän) was handed to Sweden as part of the Treaty of Roskilde. Norway invaded the city a year later before it was handed back as part of the Treaty of Copenhagen 1660. That was the last time Oddevold changed nationality and it was soon thereafter renamed to Uddevalla. The old name remains today in the form of IK Oddevold, the local football team.

Uddevalla has been burned to the ground a total of six times. The first five times were attempts to claim the city by the different Scandinavian nations. After the fifth fire in 1690, the town was rebuilt and became larger than it ever was. Uddevalla was the 5th largest city in Sweden when the sixth great fire started in 1806. The small fire which started in a barn spread quickly and burnt down the entire city. Only a few houses located in the city outskirts remained intact, and the city had to be rebuilt. It is because of this fire that central Uddevalla has a grid-like structure.

When the industrial revolution reached Sweden, Uddevalla had fully recovered from the fire. Uddevalla's first major industry was a cotton mill named Kampenhof AB. It was built in 1857 and had 10 000 machines driven by a steam engine. A few years later in 1875, Adolf P. Zachau built a match factory called Uddevalla Tändsticksfabrik. The match factory, along with their trademark “Svalan” (translated: “The Swallow”), eventually became successful all over the world. Despite this, it was closed down in 1938. Kampenhof AB remained until 1954, when it too was closed down. The cotton mill however, stood untouched until 1982 when it was demolished. In its place today is Kampenhof Resecentrum, the main bus station of Uddevalla.

Uddevallavarvet was at its time the biggest employer in all of Bohuslän with approximately 4 000 workers at its peak. It was founded in 1946 by Gustav B. Thordén, who bought two kaiser shipyards, one from Portland, Maine and one from Providence, Rhode Island, and transported them across the Atlantic. When Uddevallavarvet was closed down in 1986 they had built 221 supertankers. Their biggest ship was the T/T Nanny which, with a length of 364 meters and a width of 79 meters, is the biggest ship ever built in Sweden.