Stalowa Wola - History

History

The area of today's Stalowa Wola belongs to historic Polish province of Lesser Poland. In the Kingdom of Poland, it was located in southeastern corner of the Sandomierz Voivodeship, near the border with Red Ruthenia. The city of Stalowa Wola was built in the site where once the village of Pławo stood (between ancient towns of Nisko and Rozwadów). First mentions of Pławo come from the first half of the 15th century. At the nearby village of Przyszów, there was a hunting lodge of King Władysław Jagiełło, built before 1358. In the late 15th century, Pławo was a royal village. In 1656, the area of Pławo was the site of a battle between Polish and Swedish armies. Here, in the confluence of the San and Vistula, Swedish troops of King Charles Gustav were surrounded by Stefan Czarniecki (see Swedish invasion of Poland).

Until the Partitions of Poland, Pławo belonged to Sandomierz Voivodeship. From 1772 to 1918, it was part of Austrian province of Galicia, and remained an unsignificant, privately owned village. In early 1937, the government of the Second Polish Republic accepted the project of the Central Industrial Area, which included construction of a brand new steel mill, together with a settlement for the workers. Before the outbreak of World War Two, some departments of the mill were operational, and several blocks of flats were built. Construction of Southern Works, as the mill was then called, was started in dense pine forests around Pławo in March 1937. Among others, the plant manufactured artillery cannons.

During World War Two, Stalowa Wola was one of centers of the Home Army. The settlement was captured by the Red Army in August 1944, and on April 1, 1945, Stalowa Wola received its town charter. In 1948, the mill was renamed into Huta Stalowa Wola, in 1953, a separate urban county of Stalowa Wola was created. In 1973, the town of Rozwadów was annexed, and in 1977, the village of Charzewice. At its peak in the 1970s, the mill employed 35,000 people, with branches scattered across southern Poland, from Radomsko, to Strzyżów. Apart from the mill, Stalowa Wola has a large power plant, opened in the spring 1939. In 1988, the city was one of centers of workers protests, known as the 1988 Polish strikes. Currently, Stalowa Wola is the third city of the province, with population of 115,000.