Polonia

History

In 1858, five Polish immigrant families joined a German farming community at Ellis, two miles to the west of what would become Polonia. Some of the newly-arrived Poles at Ellis worshiped there with their German neighbors at St Martin's Catholic church for a few years, but after their numbers swelled to twenty or thirty families, Father Dabrowski called that hill Polonia. In 1874 a church school was started at Polonia, staffed by five Felician Sisters who were sent as missionaries from Kraków, Poland. By 1907 the parish had grown to 320 families, the school instructed 200 students, and the parish complex include an orphanage for 46 boys.

Geography

Polonia has an area of , of which is land and is water.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  12,615
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  10,963
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  10,312
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  10,174
• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  9,542
• American Goldfinch

  Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  9,234
• White-breasted Nuthatch

  Sitta carolinensis Latham, 1790 · Aves
  8,894
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  8,418