Olesno became seat of a castellan and received town rights in 1275 from Duke Władysław Opolski.

[2] The town suffered during the Thirty Years' War, and in 1645 it returned to Poland under the House of Vasa until 1666, when it fell again to Bohemia.

[2] After the First Silesian War and the Treaty of Breslau (Wrocław) in 1742 Olesno was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, and in 1815 became part of the Province of Silesia.

[2] After World War I, in 1919 and 1921, the Silesian Uprisings were fought there,[2] the aim of which was to reintegrate the town with Poland after it regained independence in 1918.

After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the German authorities arrested local Polish activists.