A brief history

On July 1st. 1885 the municipality of Eker was split into two, Nedre (Lower) Eiker and Øvre (Upper) Eiker municipalities. Our municipality’s administrative centre is Mjøndalen on the south side of the river, Krokstadelva just on the opposite side of the river is the most populous centre, then comes Solbergelva, Steinberg, Åsen and Ytterkollen.

Nedre Eiker was the industry part of the old municipality of Eker while Øvre Eiker was the farming part.

This area was among the first in Norway to be industrialized and the export of oak timber was the start. Further along the way we have had pottery factories, cotton mill, rubber factories and paper mills in our municipality. Today the only remaining large factory is the Trelleborg Viking – rubber products (now part of a Swedish company). This factory is at the forefront of novel ideas on how to use rubber and it is a major supplier to the oil industry.

All the paper mills closed in the late 60-ties early 70-ies and this left the municipality with challenges since quite a few did not get other employment.

Since the days of the cosing of the paper mills Nedre Eiker has developed into a regional shopping centre. The main shopping area has moved from Mjøndalen to Krokstadelva and thanks to Buskerud Storsenter and Krokstad Senter, more than 4 million shoppers came to these centres in 2007 and shopped for closed to € 200 millions.

In the administrative centre of Mjøndalen we find more traditional shops as independent clothes shops, furniture shops, fishing shops and bakeries.

Norway’s largest trading house for inner and outer beauty and wellbeing is established on our relatively new industrial area in Mjøndalen. The same trading house also has 50 % ownership in the company that sells taxfree goods to the 5 largest airports in Norway.

The poet Herman Wildenvey was born in Portåsen, Mjøndalen in 1885 and his birthplace is one of our cultural core areas in Nedre Eiker.

Much of Nedre Eiker has lots of limestone in its grounds and this is the reason why our municipality is the record holder of 24 orchids of the 37 that are found in Norway.