The Basilica of St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr in Chicopee

The first European settlers arrived in what is now Chicopee in 1638. In the 19th century the city became an important textile industry center, to which Poles, emigrants from the poor areas of the Austrian partition (Galicia), began arriving in 1880. Ten years later Franciszek Jaworek, Wojciech Tuleja, Piotr Oparowski and Jakub Sitnik founded the mutual-help Society of St. Stanislaus, which initiated the establishment of a parish in 1891. It was the first Polish parish in the western part of Massachusetts, and for decades it played a key role in the religious and social life of Polish communities in this part of the USA.