Vejen By

Vejen - troll town, industrial town and Hærvej junction. Today it is a modern commercial town with a large selection of shops. 

What do a margarine production and a troll have to do with each other? Maybe not much, and then some? The Copenhagen banker, Axel Heide, had to be persuaded to pay for a monument in Skibelund Krat, and the Vejen artist Niels Hansen Jacobsen was mentioned as a possible artist. Then the banker's spontaneous exclamation was: "Is there anything coming from the road but good margarine?"

And, yes, there are; among other things, works of art by Niels Hansen Jacobsen, of which the Troll, which stands in front of the town's art museum, has been a symbol for the city for many years. Behind the Troll is the city's art museum; partly furnished in the artist's home and studio. Vejen is one of the few station towns that has an art museum. Something that is otherwise only available to market towns. 

But before the town became a station town in 1874, Vejen was just a village on the main road between Kolding and Esbjerg. It was the arrival of the railway that created the basis for the development into a thriving industrial and commercial city. This is where margarine comes into the picture, because the margarine factory Alfa helped make Vejen a significant city between Kolding and Esbjerg. The founder of the margarine factory, Johannes Lauridsen, was an initiator and an important man in the town, who, in addition to the margarine factory, founded the roofing felt factory Phønix and the weekly magazine Ude og Hjemme!

The Vejen area has been inhabited since time immemorial, according to archaeological finds, while the town name Vejen can be traced in the 14th century Ribe Great-Grandmother. 

A famous townsman from Vejen was Ingrid Vang Nyman, who illustrated Astrid Lindgren's immortal Pippi Longstocking books. 

The houses in the new station town were built in mixed styles, because it had to be fast. In the early 1900s, the reaction to this came; namely Better Building Practice. These were buildings with good craftsmanship solutions that gave the opportunity for ordinary people to live in good buildings. The road has many good examples of this; Among other things, the railway station from 1918. In connection with the town's growth, a new church was also built in 1896; it is located in the northern part of the city; Not far from the old village.

The road is still a thriving commercial and industrial town, stretched out between motorway and railway, but also extends almost towards Askov and south to the old border crossing at Skodborghus. The city has a good and wide range of service facilities in the restaurant and hotel area. There are also good leisure and sports facilities with Vejenhallen and Vejen Sports Centre.