The name "Solec" is derived from the Polish word for salt – sól – which was extensively traded and transported through the neighbourhood since the late Middle Ages.

[2][3] Solec was granted town privileges in 1675 and became part of the jurydyka system, a fully autonomous enclave within lands governed by Warsaw's council.

The western part bordering Frascati was then redeveloped into a palatial parkland for Kazimierz Poniatowski, brother of king Stanisław II Augustus and lord chamberlain of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

[7] The early 19th century brought considerable industrialization to Warsaw and its region; small manufacturing facilities, factories, breweries and cotton mills were built in Solec which further attracted settlement from nearby villages and other countries.

Despite modernization attempts, the embankment between the Poniatowski Bridge and Marshal Rydz Park (contemporary Wioślarska Street) were occupied by a slum comparable to London's Docklands.

In the interwar period (1918–1939), the areas of Rozbrat and Górnośląska streets was urbanized; a colony of luxurious villas and manors built for Warsaw's intelligentsia which still exists today.