The first settlers appeared in the region of Poronin quite early – already in the documents from the 13th century there is a mention of the stream called Poroniec. Originally a hamlet of the village of Bialy Dunajec known as Bankowki, Poronin became an entirely separate village around the year 1620.

According to a legend, the village was named “Poronin”, for it was here that Queen Bona lost her long wished-for son in a tragic accident (“Poronin” derives from the word “poronic”, which means “to miscarry”). However, history does not confirm this explanation, and so most probably, the name “Poronin” was derived from Italian or Romanian, meaning a valley with a river.

Around 1813, in one of the hamlets of Poronin, an ironworks was built that produced excellent scythes and sickles. Until the early 19th century, Poronin did not have its own church, but then in 1806 a chapel was erected and in 1833 an independent parish with a church was established. After the wooden church had burned down in 1915, a new one was built in 1926.

Besides its agricultural and industrial activity, by as early as at the turn of the 19th and 20th century Poronin had become a favourite summer resort for the nation’s intellectual elite of the time. It was even more popular than Zakopane! Among those who stayed in Poronin and created great works here were the poets Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Jan Kasprowicz, Leopold Staff and Wladyslaw Orkan as well as painters Jan Matejko and Leon Wyczolkowski. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself rented a house in nearby Bialy Dunajec for a few years at the beginning of the 20th century and would frequently visit Poronin (his favourite place was the local inn), making the village famous globally. After the war, between 1947 and 1990, there was a museum dedicated to his residence here in Poronin.

The picturesque village continued to attract visitors in the interwar period, partly because it had a railway station and therefore could be easily and comfortably reached from Krakow.