history

first appeared in 1359, when a certain Ondřej from Volary is listed amongst the citizens of Prachatice. The foundation of the town is ceonnected with the complete colonisation of the Šumava Forest region in the 13th and 14th centuries. The main source of income intil the beginning of the 18th century was trae along the Golden Path. By this route mainly salt, amongst other commodities, was transported into Bohemia from the area around Salzburg. Volary was the biggest pack-animal drover settlement in the Czech part of the Prachatice branch of the Golden Path and it experienced a great boom.
On the 30th of April 1871 Volary was granted muniícipal status by Emperor Franz Josef I.
The cruelty of the last days of the second world war when a transportation of hundreds of Jewish women passed through the town left an indelible mark on the history of Volary. 95 victims of this "death march" are buried in the local cemetary.
The dominant feature of the town os the Early Baroque Church of St. Katherine, which is first mentioned at the end of the 15th century. It was built on the site of the original Late Gothic church between 1669 - 1690 after a design by J. Canevalla. In the 18th century the building was seriously damaged by fire on several occasions. Its present-day appearance is the result of reconstruction in 1757 and 1863.
The unique old wooden Alpine-style houses which still survive in the town are undoubtedly a sight to be seen. These are two-storeyed timber-framed buildings with a completely or partially stone ground floor, with galleries and carved banisters, a wooden first floor with a carved gable and a low very wide ridge roof. These farmstead served cattle-breeders from Styria and Tyrol who settled in Volary in the 16th century and who introduced Alpine, intensive cattle-breeding practices to the area. For a  long time they remained a distinct community, who greatly differed in the other inhabitants of the Šumava. Only a few of these extraordinary buildings have survived until the present day and Volary is the only place, where we can see such jewels of vernacular architecture. Most of them are to be found along the stream in the northern part of the town. The Volary Museum is housed in one of these buildings today.