Lisko

Lisko, now commonly called Lesko, stands above the San in the northern Carpathian foothills. The village appears in written records in 1436, by which time the surrounding estates belonged to the noble Kmita family. A town was established around 1470, and in the sixteenth century its owners built a castle and encouraged its growth. Roads connected Lesko with Hungary to the south and with towns of Lesser Poland and Ruthenia. Its guild statutes were approved in 1546; craftsmen practiced numerous trades, and weekly markets and annual fairs brought goods into the town. Poles and Ruthenians lived here, joined by a Jewish community recorded from the sixteenth century. After the death of Piotr Kmita in 1553 the town passed to other noble families, including the Stadnickis. The first partition of Poland in 1772 placed Lesko under Habsburg rule.