In 1963, the authorities of Bolesławiec faced a serious challenge: how to ensure peace and quiet for townspeople disturbed by tractors driving through the city center.
Residents of the market square began complaining that, as soon as dawn broke, they were woken by the engines of agricultural machinery. Farmers entering the city center as early as five in the morning generated noise that woke children and adults, including people working night shifts.
Despite numerous complaints, the authorities initially responded moderately, downplaying the problem. It was only toward the end of September 1963 that a decision was made to ban tractors from entering the city center. The decision was intended to ensure that residents could sleep peacefully and work, as well as to protect urban life from the advancing mechanization of agriculture.
The ban on tractors entering the city center became a symbolic beginning of the separation of urban Bolesławiec from agricultural Bolesławice and the surrounding villages. Was that when some Bolesławiec residents began dreaming of a city on the scale of European metropolises?
The year 1963 is recorded in the archives as the date when Bolesławiec began its journey toward the 21st century and becoming a modern city. Today, the market square is essentially a pedestrian promenade with limited access for cars—a place for metropolitan leisure. We have forgotten that more than 60 years ago tractors drove up to the town hall, making their noisy way through the city center to grain mills or to the agricultural cooperative with other farm produce.