 Bílovec is the birthplace of tennis players Květa Peschke and Petra Kvitová, internationally respected architect Emil Přikryl and Sudeten German social democratic politician Hugo Schmidt (1844–1907).Until 1918, "Wagstadt" was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (the Austrian side after the compromise of 1867), in the district with the same name, one of the eight "Bezirkshauptmannschaften" in Austrian Silesia.In 1938, it was occupied by the Nazi Germany as one of the municipalities in the Sudetenland, the portion of Czechoslovakia turned over to Germany in wake of the Munich Agreement.