However, the oldest traces of settlement in the fork of the Wisłok and Lubatówka Rivers, found during archaeological research, date back to the 10th and 11th centuries.

Hence it should be assumed that about the middle of the 14th century, King Casimir transformed Krosno from a settlement into a town chartered according to the Magdeburg rights and brought in numerous groups of German settlers.

But it was only under King Władysław II Jagiełło that the full-length stone and partly earth town fortifications were completed.

The privilege granted by King Casimir IV Jagiellon in 1461 shows that Krosno, next to Kraków and Lwów, was the third town in the Kingdom of Poland with such facilities.

The archaeological research conducted recently, based on the dendrochronological method, enabled scholars to move the date of the system's installation back to the middle of the 14th century.

[3] The first Jews to settle in Krosno were the brothers Nechemia and Lazar of Regensburg who received special permits from the Polish King, Władysław II Jagiełło in the 15th century.

The town had its own bleachery, fullery, brickyard, flour mill, municipal baths, it enjoyed the royal privilege for limestone excavation, it had the customs chamber and the right of storage of commodities.

High standards of living in Krosno, called at that time parva Cracovia, resulted partially from the activity of the local parish school.

The view of Krosno was included in the work of J. Braun and F. Hoghenberg entitled ‘The Towns of the World’, published in Cologne in 1617 or in Andreas Cellarius's work entitled ‘Regin Poloniae Magnique Ducatus Lithuaniae omniumque regionum subiectorum novissima descriptio’, published in Amsterdam in 1659.

Apart from traditional specialities connected with basic functions of the town there were also goldsmiths, painters, comb-makers, armourers, pavers, leather-dressers, violin makers and soapboilers.

Local clerks, scribes, innkeepers, brewers, and even townspeople providing accommodation and letting shops and cellars earned a lot.

Scots, who specialised in large-scale commerce, also came to stay and the most outstanding person among them was Robert Porteous, a wine trader from Langside, Dalkeith, who used his wealth to become a benefactor of institutions within the city.

[3] Jewish traders living in nearby townships of Korczyna, Rymanów or Dukla were frequently jailed and their wares confiscated for attempting to enter Krosno.

Natural disasters, raids of the Swedish, Transylvanian, and Tartar troops, pestilences and war requisitions brought Krosno to a desperate state at the end of 17th century.

In the time of the partitions of Poland and under the Austrian rule, once rich and important, the town experienced a period of severe impoverishment.

Korczyna and Kombornia were the strongest centres of this industry but there were thousands of home weaving shops in the vicinity of Krosno.

It was not until the middle of the 19th century, the period of the Galician autonomy from 1867 to the outbreak of the World War I, that Krosno started to rise from the decline.

The first oil company started by Ignacy Łukasiewicz, Tytus Trzecielski and Karol Klobassa in 1856 and the refinery they erected in Chorkówka caused gradual inflow of foreign capital.

In interwar Poland, Krosno was a county seat administratively located in the Lwów Voivodeship, and the town evolved gradually into an important industrial centre: a licence was issued to establish a flax straw breaking plant and a linen weaving plant, in the 1920s Polish Glass Factory, Joint-Stock Company was set up, in 1928 the construction of the airfield was begun and the aviation school was moved to Krosno from Bydgoszcz, in the 1930s the hangars were erected.

Culture is celebrated by the Krosno Days of Music, the theatrical Encounters, the Musical Spring, the Krosno Fairs, the Galicia Festival, reviews of children theatres, hiker's songs and poetry singing festivals, the "Kontakt" Euro-Regional Fair, the "Soli Deo Gloria" Euro-Regional Concerts of Christmas Carols.

In the 19th century Ignacy Łukasiewicz a local pharmacist began exploiting the deposits from hand-dug wells, years before the drilling at Titusville, Pennsylvania which is usually said to be the beginning of modern petroleum development.