History
The beginnings of the "Polish Patch" that eventually became Polish Downtown are traced back to Anthony Smarzewski-Schermann, who settled in the area in 1851. John Joseph Parot described the area at the time in his book Polish Catholics in Chicago:
"Schermann's property and surrounding environment must have reminded him of many Polish farming communities. From the still undeveloped and sparsely settled prairie on the outskirts of ante-bellum Chicago, he could see nothing but grassland stretching westward to the horizon. East of his land stood a thickly wooded area guarding both the both banks of the nearby North Branch of the Chicago River which swung noose like around Goose Island. The virgin land between Schermann's settlement and the river was populated at the time only by chickens and cattle belonging to neighboring farms; fifty years later this same land would support the highest population density in the city-more than 450 Polish immigrants on each acre of land, packed into tenement houses. But in the 1850s Schermann's rural outpost was a picture of serenity His only outlet was Plank Road, a clumsily built highway actually constructed of from wooden planks- a far cry from the bustling commercial thoroughfare later called Milwaukee Avenue along which Polish merchants in the 1920s built their own "Polish Downtown." Schermann's closest neighbors were other Polish settlers, perhaps landless tenant farmers, numbering approximately thirty families during the American Civil War.
This rustic idyll would change dramatically as Chicago's population would grow exponentially following the American Civil War, with increased immigration from Europe. Fueled by the dramatic expansion of industry as well as the city's central role as a transportation hub, immigrants, predominately from Eastern and Southern Europe flooded into Chicago. By 1890, half of all of Chicago's Poles lived in Polish Downtown. The centrality of this area as the site of initial settlement for the large numbers of newly arriving Polish immigrants was reinforced after the first Polish parish, St. Stanislaus Kostka, was founded in 1867 and Holy Trinity Polish Mission a few years later in 1872. Together the churches made the largest parish in the world, with a combined membership of over 60,000 in the early 1900s. Polish Downtown was in every way "a classic ghetto"; in 1898, eleven contiguous precincts, which contained the heart of the neighborhood at Polonia Triangle, were 86.3% Polish, with one of these precincts reported as 99.9% Polish with only one non-Pole among 2,500 inhabitants.
Along with Holy Trinity Polish Mission, St. Stanislaus Kostka was the center of Chicago's Polish community. The neighborhood became called "Kostkaville". Much of this was due to Saint Stanislaus Kostka's first pastor, Reverend Vincent Michael Barzynski, who is described as “one of the greatest organizers of Polish immigrants in Chicago and America”. Barzynski was responsible for founding 23 Polish parishes in Chicago, along with six elementary schools, two high schools, a college, orphanages, newspapers, and St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital, as well as the national headquarters of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America.
Polish immigration into the area accelerated during and after World War II; as many as 150,000 Poles are estimated to have arrived between 1939 and 1959 as displaced persons. Poles clustered in established ethnic enclaves such as this one, which offered shops, restaurants, and banks where people spoke their language. Division Street was referred to as Polish Broadway, "teeming with flophouses and gambling dens and polka clubs and workingman’s bars like the Gold Star and Phyllis’ Musical Inn".
Read more about this topic: Polish Downtown (Chicago)
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