Culture
How Finnish immigrants built America's sauna country
Finns who came for the copper and iron mines built saunas before they built houses. A smoke sauna from 1868 still stands in Cokato, Minnesota.
America's sauna country is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Minnesota's Iron Range, where Finnish miners and farmers settled from the 1860s on and built a sauna before almost anything else. The oldest smoke sauna still standing in Minnesota, and likely the country, dates from 1868 in Cokato. Two of the stove makers we list, Nippa and Kuuma, grew up in those same Finnish communities. We read the Library of Congress, the Minnesota Historical Society, Michigan Tech's archives, the National Park Service and the museums that keep these saunas, and we link each one.
Finns came for the copper and the iron
About 340,000 Finns came to the US between 1870 and 1920, and the 1900 census counted about 63,000 people born in Finland, per the Library of Congress. In the 1870s and 1880s about 40% of Finnish Americans lived in Michigan, working the mines and the woods.
The copper companies went looking for them. In 1864 the Quincy Mining Company brought about 20 Finns to Hancock, Michigan, and by 1880 Finns made up about one in five residents around Calumet, per Michigan Tech's archives. On Minnesota's Iron Range, Finns were the largest immigrant group once the population settled after 1910, a quarter of the foreign-born, per MNopedia.
The sauna went up before the house
On a new Finnish farm in Minnesota, the first building was usually a sauna, and the family lived and bathed in it while the house went up, per the Minnesota Historical Society's entry on the Cokato sauna. It was a savusauna, a smoke sauna with no chimney: the fire burned all day in the hearth, then went out, and the smoke cleared before anyone went in.
The Hanka family in Michigan's Baraga County built theirs the same way, and the Hanka Homestead Museum still keeps it. The building is 12 by 19 feet, of pine, spruce and cedar, with Herman Hanka's name carved in the door, and the racks over the stove smoked fish and meat.
Mining towns ran public saunas
Calumet had nine public saunas by 1880, historians Arnold Alanen and William Raker found, as Michigan Tech's archives quote them. The 1930 census lists Pekka Aho as the proprietor of a public sauna at 504 Sixth Street in Calumet, per the National Park Service.
The habit traveled west with the fishing trade. Astoria, Oregon's Finnish neighborhood of Uniontown had several public steam baths, per the Oregon Historical Society.
Three old saunas you can still visit
The Barberg-Selvälä-Salmonson smoke sauna in Cokato, Minnesota, dates from 1868, and the Minnesota Historical Society calls it the oldest still standing in the state and likely the country. The sauna's since been moved to Cokato's Temperance Corner, where the Cokato Finnish-American Historical Society cares for it.
The Hanka Homestead in Pelkie, Michigan, keeps its smoke sauna as part of a whole Finnish farm. In Embarrass, Minnesota, the Nelimark Sauna, built in the 1930s and on the National Register, is the largest in the community, and its museum opens Thursday to Saturday from June to September.
The stove makers grew up in the same towns
Leo Nippa built his first stove from a steam boiler in 1922 and founded his company in 1930 in Bruce Crossing, in the Upper Peninsula, per Nippa's timeline. Nippa's built its Legacy stoves in Beulah since 2005.
Richard Lamppa and his son Herbert built saunas in Embarrass from the 1930s, making stoves for the Finnish settlers around them, per Kuuma's history. The family business is now in its fourth generation, and it's been in Tower since 2020. Finnleo started in Cokato in 1984, the same town as the 1868 smoke sauna. Our Kuuma and Nippa reviews cover the stoves.
Sauna societies keep the habit going
The North American Sauna Society formed in 2004 to defend the classic Finnish way of bathing. In Minneapolis, the 612 Sauna Society began with a mobile sauna ready by Christmas 2014 and a Kickstarter that raised $33,810 in 2016, its founder writes.
Michigan's House declared a Sauna Week in February 2024, and its resolution claims Michigan took in more Finnish immigrants than any other state. FinnFest USA has run since 1983, and at Marquette in 2005 it set a Guinness record for the most people in one sauna, per FinnFest.
How we put this together
This piece draws on the Library of Congress's Finns in America guide, MNopedia, Michigan Tech's archives, the National Park Service's Keweenaw pages, the Oregon Historical Society, the Hanka Homestead Museum, SISU Heritage, Nippa's, Kuuma's and Finnleo's own histories, the North American Sauna Society, the 612 Sauna Society founder's account, Michigan House Resolution 186 and FinnFest USA, all read Oct 10, 2026.
Common questions
- Where is the oldest sauna in the United States?
- The Barberg-Selvälä-Salmonson smoke sauna in Cokato, Minnesota, built in 1868, is the oldest still standing in Minnesota and likely in the United States, according to the Minnesota Historical Society.
- Why are there so many saunas in Minnesota and Michigan?
- Finnish immigrants settled Michigan's copper country and Minnesota's Iron Range from the 1860s on and built saunas first on their farms and as public baths in mining towns. About 40% of Finnish Americans lived in Michigan in the 1870s and 1880s, per the Library of Congress.
- Which American sauna stove makers have Finnish roots?
- Nippa was founded in 1930 by Leo Nippa in Bruce Crossing, Michigan, and Kuuma comes from the Lamppa family, who built saunas and stoves for Finnish settlers in Embarrass, Minnesota, from the 1930s, according to the companies.
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