Tukums

Tukums developed on routes between the Daugava and Prussia, around a castle of the Livonian Order. A masonry castle rose beside the Slocene in the late thirteenth century, with a market and the houses of merchants and craftsmen nearby. In the sixteenth century a straighter road to Prussia encouraged new workshops and shops to grow along the town's main street.

Under Duke Jacob of Courland in the seventeenth century, Tukums benefited from new roads and enterprises. A dam created a lake near the road to Jelgava, supplying a flour mill and a copper-working furnace whose products were exported abroad. After Courland passed to Russia in 1795, Tukums received the status of a regional administrative district centre. Its first school opened in 1806.