Homes for sale in
Posen.

The area that became Posen was first settled by Dutch and German farmers in the second half of the 19th century. In 1893 a Chicago real estate firm hired Polish-speaking salesmen who sold roughly 12,000 lots to Polish immigrants, and the new settlement was named Posen after the city of Poznan in Poland, from which many residents had come. After residents petitioned the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago for their own parish, a mission was established in 1894 that became St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Catholic Church.

Many early residents were industrial workers employed at the factories in nearby Harvey rather than farmers, and the village incorporated in 1900, in part to retain control of local tavern license fees during a temperance-era annexation push. In the 1930s the population was overwhelmingly of Polish origin, and the village reached roughly its present size by the 1950s. The community has since become highly diverse, with Hispanic or Latino residents making up the majority of the population at the 2020 census.