In 2015 protests started in response to planned cutbacks at the local hospital in the town of Sollefteå. The cutbacks affected mainly emergency and delivery care and the protests later developed into an occupation of the hospital entrance. Over the course of the protests, the mobilisation was framed in the light of emblematic historical struggles that had played out in the area. To mobilise people today, the protests drew on this ‘place trajectory’ of struggles that shaped the Swedish welfare state. This was a rather successful strategy, but connecting today’s struggles with those in the past brought to light some of the old conflict lines of the past, while at the same time it hid some of the issues in the current struggle, e.g. women’s work and working conditions in the affected hospital. Drawing on place trajectories in political contention thus seems to be an ambivalent strategy that can mobilise people but risks glossing over current issues in favour of historical connections.