Krosshamn

Roads create centres and marginal places, and changes in communications make old centres into new marginal places. This is something Krosshamn has experienced.

From the 1600s Krosshamn has been a hostelry place, but we find little information about the place until towards the end of the 1700s. Krosshamn has never had many inhabitants, so the reason for the activities has been the good harbour in the middle of the shipping lane. For seafarers it was normal to rest there before venturing out on to Korsfjorden, or after they had crossed this exposed and rough stretch of fjord.

In other ways Krosshamn was also an important centre. There was a store here and a fish handling place, baker, shoemaker and tannery, and people came here from the entire northern part of Austevoll. The first baker who settled in the small coastal community of Os by Bjørnefjorden in the middle of the 1800s, had been a baker in Krosshamn.

When the municipal administration was introduced in 1837, and for 50 years hence, the major part of Austevoll belonged to Sund municipality, which was earlier a part of Sartor coastal administration district. Krosshamn was situated centrally in the municipality, and for this entire period the courthouse in Krosshamn was the fixed venue for meetings for the executive committee and the municipal council. The new formation of the municipalities in 1886, which made Austevoll into a separate municipality, at the same time led to Krosshamn being left on the periphery in the municipality, and the municipal council moved their meetings to the courthouse at Bakholmen.

Today Krosshamn is a summer vacation place, but the old courthouse is still standing.