Litlabø Mining Museum (Stord Municipality/Stord City)

 museum, mine, interesting place, mining museum

The mine museum at Litlabø has been established to commemorate the local community existing in the times of A/S Stordø Kisgruber. Pyrite was mined in this area from 1865 to 1968, when production was closed down due to difficult market conditions. There is, however, a lot of pyrite remaining inside the mountain.
Litlabø, or Gruo (the mine) as the local name is, is rich in history, geological, architechtural, technical as well as social.
The original mine museum at Litlabø was opened May 29. 1984 and is located in the old blacksmiths’ shop called the smithy (“smio”) in the mine level area. Here a good number of photos and objects from the mining days are exhibited, in addition to two impressive scale models of the Litlabø mining area and the ore shipping dock at Grunnavågsneset.
In the pleasant park between the mine level area and the venerable office building of 1910 stands the restored workmen’s house, completely equipped with original furniture taken from the workmen’s houses that belonged to Stordø Kisgruber. Here visitors may see what it was like to live and grow up in the middle of a mining community in the 1950s. The museum in the smithy and the workmen’s house are run and administered by Sunnhordland Museum, guiding being provided both by Sunnhordland Museum and the FOM.

www.gruo.no/engelsk/