Klucze - the former royal village

Address:

Klucze

GPS:

50° 20' 5.856" N 19° 33' 45.9036" E

A lack of a source of data on the origins of the village of Klucze makes it impossible to determine the precise date of its establishment. On the basis of a preserved location act, it is assumed that the village was established in the first half of the fourteenth century, during the reign of Casimir the Great. The first settlers probably came from Olkusz, an old mining center, and engaged in mining and smelting of ore. There are several historical sources describing the origin of the name of the village, [Pol. “keys”] such as the description of the Rabsztyn district by Seweryn Boner (1534), where the author states that the name derives from a Rabsztyn official, titled the Keeper of the Keys, who owned arable land in this village of Klucze. In 1388, King Władysław Jagiełło sold half of the village to a Krakow official. Since then, Klucze formed a part of vast land properties of magnates, and was in turn owned by the various proprietors of Ogrodzieniec, the Pilecki, Boner, Firlej and Warszycki families. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Klucze was again a royal estate.  The village was leased out and did not develop economically. In the time of the chronicler Jan Długosz it had seven fiefs, their number declining to five in 1490r and to three and a half in 1629, which showed a progressive impoverishment of the peasants. In the sixteenth century the other half of the village ceased to be royal land. The eighteenth century brought new economic trends, because the profitability of farming in estates was raised by the construction of industrial plants. Blacksmiths, distillers, millers and wheelwrights were brought to Klucze. In 1791 the village numbered 198 inhabitants, and the existence of a glass factory, a brewery and two mills indicated its development. The good times did not last long, and in 1872 the distillery was closed. Eight years later, water forced the owners to close the mine. The loss-making property was sold to a joint stock company. In 188, Klucze were bought by an industrialist, Ludwig Mauve from Sosnowiec. Since 1897, Klucze have been connected with the paper industry. During the 1920s and 30s Klucze continued to develop: a railway siding was constructed, and a football club KS Przemsza Klucze was established. The year 1939 brought the incorporation of Klucze into the German Third Reich and therefore, among other changes, the Polish was changed into a German school. After the liberation in 1945, a Primary Industrial School was founded in Klucze, and a Secondary Industrial School was created in the 1950s. The twentieth century saw the rise of other industrial companies, a Health Center, and in the late1960s the formation of the “Silikaty” sand and lime production plant.