Czerwionka-Leszczyny was created by a merger of two towns (Czerwionka and Leszczyny) and two villages (Czuchów and Dębieńsko), which to this day maintain their separate identities.
People have settled in the area of Czerwionka-Leszczyny as early as 8th century BC, as evidenced by a Bronze Age bracelet that was found in Czerwionka and is currently stored in a museum in Gliwice.
[2] The first written sources mentioning Leszczyny, Liber Fundationis Episcopus Wratislaviensis (book proclaiming the foundation of the Wrocław diocese), dates back to 1305.
In 1788 the first test shaft were created to confirm hard coal reserves, and in 1792 the owner of Czerwionka and Dębieńsko, baron von Wilczek, secured a permit for the first mine, Neues Glück (New luck).
[4] In 1856, Czerwionka and Leszczyny gained railway connection to Rybnik and Katowice, which opened the area to cheaper iron, zinc and steel, undercutting the local industry.
In 1896, Vereinigte Königs- und Laurahütte corporation (owner of steelworks in Chorzów) bought rights to coal fields in Czerwionka area and opened the mine in on November 2, 1898.
[5] Following World War I, the area of modern Czerwionka-Leszczyny, along with all of Upper Silesia, found itself between Germany and newly-formed Poland.
Under The Treaty of Versailles agreement, Upper Silesia was supposed to vote in a plebiscite whether it wants to stay in Germany or join Poland.
In 1940, after expulsion of ethnic Poles to the General Government, the nazis introduced the Deutsche Volksliste, a classification of desirability of the population in occupied western Poland.
In Czerwionka-Leszczyny area, as in most of Upper Silesia, the vast majority were classified as category 3 and given conditional, 10-year German citizenship.
[7] At the end of World War II, in late January 1945, one of the Death Marches from Auschwitz led through Leszczyny, where hundreds of prisoners were killed by the SS men: 447 near the train station and 288 in a field nearby.
In the months immediately after the liberation, the Soviet military command and new Polish communist leadership deported many men to Donetsk Coal Area, Kazakhstan and Siberia to work as slave labor for the USSR, while others were incarcerated and often killed in camps such as Zgoda because the new government considered Silesians to be German.
[10] Growing population was reflected by changes in administrative status: in 1962 Czerwionka, Leszczyny and Czuchów were merged into a town under the name Czerwionka-Leszczyny.
The government of Jerzy Buzek adopted a plan which aimed at reducing employment in the industry through buy-outs and ultimately closing mines.
At the time of the closure, 2,400 people were employed at the mine, or which 1,300 were granted various forms of social welfare such as early retirement or buy-outs.
In 2019, neighborhood populations were as follows:[11] Since 1898, the town's main employer was the Dębieńsko coal mine, which was closed up in 2000, causing substantial job loss and unemployment.