Gąbin was first mentioned in 1215, but a gord-type settlement existed here long before that date, as in 1920, a coin minted by first Polish King Boleslaus I the Brave was found in the market square.

Local merchants traded with the main Polish port city of Gdańsk, to which they sold grain, and from which they bought salt, fish, and foreign liquor.

[2] The period of prosperity ended during the Swedish invasion of Poland (1655–1660), when Gąbin was ransacked and burned to the ground, and Great Northern War (1700–1721).

In 1807 it was regained by Poles and included in the short-lived French Duchy of Warsaw, and in 1815 it became part of so-called Congress Poland, soon forcibly integrated into Russia.

The Polish November Uprising against Russia (1830–1831), in which many local Poles took part, caused an economic collapse, as the Russian army plundered farms and brought the cholera epidemic to the town.

[2] Eugenia Sikorska-Dąbrowska, sister of Polish wartime leader Władysław Sikorski, was fatally shot by the Germans, while she was saving children.

Germans immediately carried out mass arrests of local Polish intelligentsia, activists and officials, who were deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp and murdered there.

[2] The Germans also burned down the local synagogue, dismantled the Gothic Revival church, which was erected shortly before the war, and destroyed the Polish Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

[4] Before the onset of World War II, Gąbin was home to a large Jewish population, around 2,000 residents, and hosted an ornate wooden synagogue from the early 1700s.

Gąbin is home to a large high school of over 1,000 students with specialties in modern farming techniques, technical skills, and preparation for higher education.