Šeštokai - a town in the territory of Lazdijai district municipality, 14 km north of Lazdijai. There is a railway station, the Church of the Holy Virgin Mary of the Perpetual Savior (built in 1924), a post office, a primary school, a cultural center, a library (since 1950). Not far from Šeštokai is the ethnocultural homestead-museum of P. Dzūkas.
In the second half of the 16th century, A. Sasinas received the right to cut down a forest in Šeštokinė and establish a homestead. In 1592, the ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sigismund Vasa, entrusted it to the Pinsk bannerman K. Fediuša to manage for life, and it is believed that he also allocated land for the establishment of a manor.
In the first half of the 19th century, Šeštokai was a village and a manor house. In 1898, after the construction of the Varėna–Suwalki railway, a station was built, residential houses for railway workers, warehouses, and a town was formed nearby. The Kazlų Rūda–Šeštokai railway, built in 1921–23, connected Šeštokai with the Lithuanian railway network. A parish was established in 1921, and a church was built in 1924. In the 1930s, after the manor land was sold, the town expanded. In 1939, there was a dairy, a cooperative, several shops, agricultural and small credit societies, and riflemen.
In the second half of 1941, the Jews of Šeštokai were supposedly killed in Kalvarija or Marijampolė by order of the Nazi German occupation authorities. After World War II, in 1945, the Šeštokai partisans gathered in the Kalniškė Forest in the Lithuanian partisan Lakūnas Company. In 1940–41 and 1944–53, the Soviet authorities deported 30 Šeštokai residents. During the Soviet occupation, Šeštokai was the center of the district and the central settlement of the collective farm. The Šeštokai–Suwalki railway section, rebuilt in 1992, connected Lithuania with the European railway network. In 2002, the Šeštokai coat of arms was approved. In 1871, the Lithuanian public figure in the United States, priest A. Milukas, was born in Šeštokai.
Information from the Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia page
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