Around 100 years ago, there was a whole community here at Karlsfors. There was a bank, a post office, a school and a store. The industrial community started with alum production as early as in the 18th century. The alum was for example used as an ingredient for red paint. In the middle of the 19th century the industry shifted to mainly produce lime for cement and soil improvement. Today you can only see the remains of the industry.
Bernt Harder Santesson, a merchant, came to Silverfallet in the parish of Berg at the beginning of the 19th century. Here, at Karlsfors Farm, he started the eleventh and last-established alum factory in Scandinavia.
Karlsfors was a large but relatively inefficient alum factory. At most, more than 100 men were employed here. Karlsfors was badly hit in the mid-19th century, when the chemical industry came up with a new, simple and inexpensive method for producing alum, and the factory closed down in 1856.