Stryków

History

The first mention of Stryków was in 1387. Stryków was a village situated on the route from Zgierz to Łowicz. Stryków received town rights in 1394 from King Władysław II Jagiełło, at the request of the heir of the town founder, Deresław Strykowski. It was a private town, administratively located in the Brzeziny County in the Łęczyca Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the town had 45 artisans (13 clothiers, 5 merchants and shopkeepers, and 5 others) and was a local center of commerce and crafts. It was also a center of aristocratic wealth. In 1744 the town received the privilege of organizing eight fairs a year. Stryków belonged to medium-sized cities. Textile manufacturing was attempted by the then owner Felix Czarnecki but without success. The town economy remained centered on crafts and agriculture. Contemporary activities have left traces of the old town in the form of an existing semi-circular square in the town center. After the Second Partition of Poland, Stryków was annexed by Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the period 1807–15 in the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw and then in the Russian-controlled Polish Kingdom, from 1867 on as part of Piotrków Governorate. In the nineteenth century Stryków lost its town rights. The reason for the stagnation of population growth was the rapid development of nearby Łódź and rapidly growing Pabianice and Zgierz. In 1902 Stryków was linked by rail to Warsaw and Łódź, which was followed by population growth. This rail link was closed for some years but was reopened in October 2011. Shortly after regaining town rights in 1923, Stryków recovered as a town, with the economy based on shoemaking and tailoring. In Stryków yarn and textiles were produced,…