The town is also a key railroad junction, located along the major Berlin – Warsaw line, with two additional connections stemming from Dęblin – one westwards to Radom, and another one northeast to Łuków.

In 1840 the village was handed to Russian field marshal Ivan Paskievich, who played a prominent role in the suppression of the November Uprising.

In the years after the November Uprising the military significance of the Dęblin site, at the confluence of two important rivers (the Vistula and the Wieprz), was noted.

In the early 1880s a railway line connecting Lublin with Silesia was built, with a bridge over the Vistula passing near the fortress, further enhancing its importance.

In October 1914 a significant battle was fought in its vicinity, in which the Russian armies repelled a combined German and Austro-Hungarian offensive.

In 1920, the Dęblin area was the starting point for a Polish offensive that decided the fate of the Battle of Warsaw and the entire Polish–Soviet War.

In 1927 the famous Polish Air Force academy was officially moved to Dęblin, after its founding in Grudziądz in 1925 (some pilot training has been conducted here since 1920).

Dęblin was a location of a German prisoner-of-war camp for Polish, French, Dutch, Belgian, Senegalese, Soviet and Italian POWs, designated at various times as Stalag 307 and Oflag 77.

On 1 July 1924 Minister of Military Affairs, General Władysław Sikorski officially changed the name Forest Barracks into Stawy.

In late September 1939, General Franciszek Kleeberg, commander of Independent Operational Group Polesie ordered his soldiers to march to Stawy, and capture the depot.

In the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, Illinois, which has a high concentration of Polish Americans, one of the streets bears the name of Dęblin Lane.