A settlement in place of Fordon is mentioned in sources for the first time in 1112 as . In those times there was located an important defensive castle which was eventually fired and destroyed in 1330 by the Teutonic Knights. Fordon was a
royal town of the Kingdom of Poland, administratively located in the Bydgoszcz County in the
Inowrocław Voivodeship in the
Greater Poland Province. In the
Partitions of Poland it was annexed by
Prussia. In 1807, Fordon was regained by Poles and included in the short-lived
Duchy of Warsaw. After the dissolution of the duchy in 1815, it was re-annexed by Prussia, and included within the semi-autonomous
Grand Duchy of Posen. It was returned to Poland at the end of the
First World War. Following the German
invasion of Poland, which started
World War II in September 1939, it was
occupied and annexed by
Nazi Germany. It is estimated that during the war, German soldiers
killed from 1,200 to 3,000 people, mainly
Poles and
Jews, in a place now known as the
Valley of Death. The exact number stays unknown as historians have not found appropriate documents that would state the final number of deaths. In 1945 Fordon was liberated from German occupation. In 1950 Fordon was still a separate town from Bydgoszcz. At that time it was described as "seven miles east" of the latter city. It had a population of 3,514 people and manufactured such things as cement and paper. In 1973 Fordon became a part of the city of Bydgoszcz. The prison in Fordon was established in 1780 and changed into a men's/women's prison several times. From 1939-1956 among others, there were kept and killed 180 Ukrainian women in the prison. A memorial plaque was placed on the prison on May 10, 1992. ==Buildings and places==