page_title: Mielec
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Mielec / History
caption_attribution_description: This is a photo of a monument in Poland identified by the ID 630626 English: Manor house of family Oborski in Mielec, Poland Polski: Mielec, palacyk Oborskich
context_page_description: Mielec is the largest city and seat of Mielec County. Mielec is located in south-eastern Poland, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship.
  The population of Mielec equals 60,366 inhabitants, as of June 2019.
  The city has Special Economic Zone Euro-Park Mielec with access to Mielec Airport and railway. About 15 km north of Mielec runs LHS railway - The transshipment terminal in Wola Baranowska enables the exchange of cargo between the broad gauge and standard gauge railways and trucks. Moreover, the city of Mielec has technical schools and colleges.
  The motto of the city is "Here wings spread!" in reference to many successful domestic and foreign investments.
context_section_description: The first mention of a place called Mielec occurs in the thirteenth century in the 1229 bull of Pope Gregory IX. In the second half of the fourteenth century, "Mielecka" was mentioned in a list of parishes. The city of Mielec, part of Sandomierz Voivodeship, was founded on 17 March 1457, when King Casimir IV granted a charter to John Mielecki for the establishment of a city under the name of Nowy Targ. For unknown reasons John Mielecki did not go on to found the city; it was eventually established by his two sons, John and Bernard, by an Act of 18 December 1470. The Mielecki family owned the town of Mielec until the last of the Mieleckis died in 1771. Under their rule, there was intensive development of craft industries. In 1522, the first guild was founded. This was the blacksmiths' guild. It was followed by guilds of tailors, cobblers, potters, spinners, and weavers.
  The next owners of Mielec were the Ossolinski and Morsztyn families. In 1775, Anna Ossilinska married John Pieniazek, bringing as a dowry her share of part of the city. The next owner was Ignatius Suchorzewski, who married Pieniazek's daughter Paulina. Suchorzewski sold Mielec's property to Louis Starzenski in 1847, who then disposed of it ten years later to a Jewish family named Gross. The last owner of Mielec was the Oborski family in 1891.
  In 1853, the county town of Mielec governed an area in which there were 106 settlements and 91 castral municipalities. In 1892, on Kosciuszko Street a new City Council building and police barracks were built. The development of the county town was interrupted by a huge fire, which destroyed three quarters of the city. This catastrophe caused the city to apply for a state loan of 12 crowns, the receipt of which led to the rapid development of the city. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the market place in Mielec was surrounded by brick houses, and in 1902, a courthouse was built. In 1912, a gymnasium (or academic high school) and the office of County Council were established and buildings constructed to house them.
  World War I caused much damage to the infrastructure and economy of city of Mielec and the county. In the interwar years many streets were paved with cobbles.  In addition, a private power plant, various craft workshops, and retail businesses were established. In 1934, the Mielec region suffered a huge flood that destroyed more than 11,000 households.
  Mielec's economy has been based for the last 70 years around a single industrial enterprise, which transformed the city and increased its population sixfold.  This process began in the 1930s, when Poland launched a significant expansion of its armaments industry, focused on building factories in the newly created Central Industrial Region (Polish: Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy, abbreviated COP). In 1936, a state-owned factory making airplane chassis was established (State Aviation Works - Airframe Fakcory No. 2) on the outskirts of the town, an area then known as Cyranka. The factory started to build a new bomber, the PZL P-37 or "Łoś" (English: "Moose"). In addition in the years 1937-1939 a large aviation factory belonging to the PZL company was set up. This new manufacturing industry necessitated the development of residential housing for factory workers and management personnel.
  After the outbreak of World War II, the city and the airplane company fell into the hands of the German invaders. The period of German occupation lasted from 9 September 1939 to 6 August 1944 in Mielec. In the years of 1939–1944, the factory produced German bombers, and from 1943 also manufactured the fighter plane He–297. The Nazis staffed much of the factory with slave labour. Initially, Jews from Mielec were enslaved in this forced labor camp. In 1942, the Jewish population of Mielec was deported to death camps, except for a few who remained as slave labour at the factory.  Before the war, the Jewish population of Mielec was 2,800 out of a total population of 5,500. During the deportation, the factory hangars were the site of a mass murder of several hundred of Mielec's Jew
caption: Oborski Palace
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