the later 19th century · 1880s–1914 A station, and a county that emptiedStanica a stolica, ktorá sa vyprázdnila

Under Austria-Hungary the town stayed small while Prešov grew. A railway was built north out of Prešov up the Torysa toward Sabinov and the Polish frontier in the later nineteenth century, and Veľký Šariš got a station on it. That was useful, but it also made commuting into the city easy, and it set the pattern the town still has today. Meanwhile Šariš county was among the poorest in the kingdom, and between the 1880s and 1914 tens of thousands of its people emigrated to the United States. Hungarian was pushed as the language of schools and offices in a district where hardly anyone spoke it at home.Za Rakúsko-Uhorska zostalo mestečko malé, kým Prešov rástol. V druhej polovici 19. storočia postavili z Prešova na sever popri Toryse železnicu smerom na Sabinov a k poľskej hranici a Veľký Šariš na nej dostal stanicu. Bolo to praktické, ale zároveň to uľahčilo dochádzanie do mesta a nastavilo vzorec, ktorý platí dodnes. Šarišská stolica pritom patrila k najchudobnejším v kráľovstve a od 80. rokov 19. storočia do roku 1914 sa desaťtisíce jej obyvateľov vysťahovali do Spojených štátov. V školách a úradoch sa presadzovala maďarčina, hoci doma ňou takmer nikto nehovoril.