Puuppola

Puuppola (historically also Korttajärvi ) is a district of Jyväskylä and a village in Central Finland. Before 2009, it was a part of Jyväskylän maalaiskunta. The national road 4 passes by Puuppola. The distance to central Jyväskylä is roughly 11 km.

Geography
The center of Puuppola is located near the lakes Korttajärvi and Lehesjärvi.

The district (kaupunginosa, for local development) does not contain the statistical area of "Puuppola itäinen", which is a part of Matinmäki instead. However, parts of statistical Vertaala and Saarenmaa are included in the Puuppola district. The register village also included Kuikka and Hiekkapohja, and bordered Tikka-Mannila in the north, Palokka in the east and south, and Vesanka and Nyrölä in the west.

Etymology
The name Puuppola refers to a surname Puuppo or Puupponen, though the meaning of the root word is unknown. Puuppola is also the name of the oldest farm in the village.

The name Korttajärvi, which has been used as the register village's name, comes from the name of the nearby lake. The word kortta has not been attested from the dialects of Central Finland, therefore the kortta- element is likely a corruption of korte ("horsetail").

History
Puuppola or Korttajärvi has its origins in the 16th century. The area was originally held as hunting grounds by the men of Saarioinen, which is where the first settler of the area, Pietari Puuppo(nen) from the Sillantaka farm, came from. He was mentioned as Per Pwpo in 1529. By the 1550s, more settlers had arrived in the lands around the lakes Korttajärvi and Alvajärvi. These settlers had come from the heartlands of Tavastia and from "Päijänne", most likely referring to Päijänteenpohja (Keljo). As a village, Korttajärvi was first mentioned in 1572. The document also mentions a nearby village called Jyväspohja, which disappeared from written records after 1573. The name Jyväspohja is connected to the name of Jyväskylä; it is possible that its first settler came from Jyväskylä proper.

In 1583, Pietari Puupponen and his sons raided the village of Palokka to the south of Puuppola and forged a document stating ownership of pastures which belonged to the villages of Palokka and Jyväskylä. Eventually king John III of Sweden forced Pietari to renounce his land claims.

Puuppola was originally a part of either the Jämsä parish or the Laukaa chapel community of the Rautalampi parish. Laukaa became an independent parish in 1628 and Puuppola had been permanently transferred to it by 1646. The Jyväskylä chapel community was established around 1693, and Puuppola became one of its villages. The Jyväskylä parish was separated from Laukaa in 1856. The municipality of Jyväskylän maalaiskunta was established in 1868 out of the parts of the Jyväskylä parish that were not part of the town.

In the mid-1980s, there were approximately 1,400 people living in Puuppola. As Puuppola was connected well to the rest of Jyväskylä, new people started moving in soon and by the early 1990s, the population had increased to 1,600. As deindustrialization had affected nearby Tikkakoski around the same time, the municipality made new development plans for the area. As there was not enough free land in Tikkakoski, a plan was made to develop Puuppola or Lehesvuori into an urban area for 10,000 inhabitants. This was opposed by the village association of Puuppola, who believed that an urbanization plan similar to the one made for Kuokkala earlier was partially enforced by the town of Jyväskylä onto the rural municipality. The plan was never approved due to heavy opposition; in a poll from the 90s, 85 % of respondents were also against the smaller plan for an urban area for 5,000 inhabitants.

A new zoning plan was made in 2005, which would have expanded Palokka towards Lintukangas and closer to Puuppola by constructing 210 houses, intended for 800 new residents.

Puuppola became a district of the town of Jyväskylä in 2009 after the dissolution of Jyväskylän maalaiskunta.

School
Puuppola has a school for grades 1-6 (ala-aste) with some 300 pupils. A school was first established here in 1890.

Commercial
There are no stores in Puuppola, as the last one, Puuppolan Rita, was closed in 2018. In the 1970s, there were three other stores: a branch of Osuuskauppa Keskimaa and one of Osuuskauppa Mäki-Matti, as well as the privately owned T:mi Manninen.

Hydroelectric plant
There is a small (0,4 MW) hydroelectric plant in the lower Autiojoki river between the lakes Korttajärvi and Luonetjärvi. The river is one of Jyväskylä's longest rivers and has a drainage area of over 100 km2. It was built in 1964 to produce energy for the village and was acquired by Koskienergia Oy in the early 21st century. Since 2018, there have been plans to demolish it in order to restore the river into its natural state, especially to allow brown trout to reproduce in the area. The town of Jyväskylä purchased the plant in 2022.

Notable people

 * Tommi Mäkinen
 * Eino Oksanen