Strib

History

The town of Strib has been in existence for approximately 350 years. Four years after nearby Fredericia had been fortified, and the beginnings of the fortification of Strib, these two towns controlled the movement between Jutland and Funen. The people managed to build a rampart on the island, to protect from attacks. Three bastions were also built, but the building of the rampart was given up for unknown reasons. The next time Strib appears in history is when the railroad over Funen was finished in 1866. The settlers in the area were building a ferry port commenced operations. As the traffic increased and the town grew, around 1900 Strib became a fashionable place to spend summer vacations. Beach hotels appeared, music pavilions, and large villas, which were built along the cliffs on the north side of the peninsula. The good summer life lasted until World War I. In the Fredercia fort a lot of hardship arose, because the people were not allowed to build outside the walls for many years. It was almost natural that the people went to Strib and started a building boom on both sides of Vestergade (Western Street) from around 1910 to 1920. The town was considered a ferry-town until the opening of the first Little Belt Bridge in 1935. After the bridge opened, development almost came to a standstill. This economic stagnation lasted from about 1935 to 1950. The depression of the 1930s came to an end at the start of World War II. In the 1960s and 1970s and up until the present, Strib has developed much more. From 1962 to 1974 the abandoned ferry harbour housed the porpoise research station, one of the earliest research facilities in the world where the physiology and bioacoustics of harbour porpoises and harbour seals were studied. Today, the town is primarily a town of…