 By the time trains started rolling through the village in 1882, a village with several dozen houses had sprung up around the station.Haapamäki never saw any major industry roll into town, as there were no rapids nearby that could be used to generate energy; nor were there any major waterways nearby that could be used for transporting timber to the station.Until the end of the 1800s, Haapamäki railway station's development was quite modest; this was, above all, due to the inability of the merchants to use the railway to their advantage and the municipality's reluctance to develop the station village, which was located far from downtown Keuruu.