Gmina Łochów

The territory of the Łochów Commune lies on the border of Mazovia and Podlasie. In the Middle Ages this area was overgrown by the White Forest, whose forests on the left side of the Bug River were called the Kamieniecka Forest and its central part - the Łochowiec Forest, i.e. a fragment of the forest that was the area of representative hunting expeditions. Today's Lochowec Forest is just a remnant of the old charms, dense forests and oak trees of the former primeval forests. Kamienczyk, once called Kamieniec Mazowiecki, was the hunting residence of the Mazovian princes. In 1526, Mazovia was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland. It was then that the Kamieniec Forest with Łochów became the property of the Polish kings.
Łochów was located under Chełmno Law as a village in 1378 by the Mazovian prince, Siemowit III, and granted to Wawrzyniec Pieńka. At the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, a close associate of Mazovian Prince Janusz I the Elder, Wawrzyniec of Targowy, became the owner of the Łochów estate. He was a member of the Kushab family of the Kushab coat of arms, which adopted the surname Łochowscy in the 16th century. The family owned the village until the 17th century. In the 18th century, Łochowo passed into the ownership of the Kuszl family. At the end of the 18th century it was briefly co-owned by the Hryniewicz and Zieliński families. In 1800 the part of the Łochowo estate belonging to Ignacy Zieliński was acquired by the Hornowski family of the Korczak coat of arms. In 1848, Józef Hornowski bought the entire Łochow estate at auction.
On November 6, 1858, Jozef Hornowski sold part of his land for the construction of the Warsaw-Petersburg Railroad. The opening of the railroad in 1862 led to the development of the village. In 1868 the Łochow passenger and freight station was put into operation. It was immediately assigned an important role, which was evident in the type and size of buildings. A brick station was erected, which was peculiar in the wilderness that existed here in the 19th century.... Near Lochow, a railroad sleeper factory was opened in Baczki in 1873.
In 1871, a fire consumed much of the buildings of the village, which was located on the river. As a result of this incident, settlement in the village began to develop mainly near the railroad tracks. In 1882, due to the Russification of Polish names in the Kingdom of Poland, Łochowo was officially renamed Łochów.
In 1878, Jozef Hornowski bequeathed the Łochowo estate to his relative, Medard Stanislaw Downarowicz of the Przyjaciel coat of arms, who in 1882 sold it to Zdzislaw Zamoyski, the owner of Jadow. The Zamoyski family owned the Łochow estate until 1919. In 1919 the Łochow estate as a dowry of Izabella Zamoyska became the property of the Kurnatowski family of the Łodzia coat of arms. The new owner of the Łochow estate, Erik Kurnatowski, was a well-known horse enthusiast in the Second Polish Republic. In 1931 he established a stud in Łochów, which in 1935-1939 was ranked first among all stables in Poland. The biggest successes of the stud were winning the Great Warsaw Stakes five times and almost all the name prizes at the Warsaw horse racing track.
The September campaign ended the existence of the stud in Łochów. After the German army entered, the horses belonging to the Kurnatowski family were confiscated and taken to Mariendorf in Brandenburg.
In 1944, the Blochow estate was nationalized and later parceled out. Reconstruction of the railroad infrastructure, which was almost completely destroyed in August 1944, began.
In the 1950s, the dynamic development of the town began. On December 17, 1968 Łochów was granted city rights. The settlements of Wymysys and Baczki Fabryczne were incorporated into the city. New streets began to be built and laid out. New private houses began to be built, mostly one-story brick houses. In the 1970s, factories in Baczki and Ostrówek were expanded. In 1974-1977, a church was built in the town and the seat of the parish of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, transferred from Budziska in 1976, was established there.

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