Forssa's history began in 1847 when the Swedish born Axel Wilhelm Wahren founded a cotton mill by the side of the Loimijoki river. Industrialization gathered speed and the town grew and developed alongside the factory. In addition to the factory buildings, Wahren arranged to have built homes, a hospital, a library, a general store and a school.
The township of Forssa was founded in 1923 and in 1964 was granted its charter and officially became a town. At the same time the building of the new trunk roads to Turku, Pori and Helsinki accelerated the town's development
