Staunton, How Staunton Got Its Name, Macoupin County Illinois
©1997 Cindy Leonard

From the book, Staunton in Illinois, by Dorrell Kilduff.

Contributed for use by Cindy Leonard

"Here is the story told me many years ago by an old settler about how Staunton got its name. A man named Stanton bought land here, then decided to move on and gave the land to the village for a square. There were two Stantons, James and Thomas, who bought land here in 1836 so that makes the story believable. At the meeting to discuss the post office someone suggested they name the village Stanton as a "thank you" to Mr. Stanton. The suggestion was accepted and the application for a post office at Stanton went off to Wasington, D.C. There the clerk who handled the request must have thought those westerners couldn't spell. The grant came back with the name spelled S-t-a-u-n-t-o-n which was the name of a town in the Appalachian region of Virginia. It would take time and effort to have the error corrected and no one really cared. Anyway, Staunton, Va., was and still is pronounced "Stanton". And so it was in Staunton, Illinois for many years. Avery Sawyer used to say that people here began saying Staunton as we do today only after their throats were so full of coal dirt they could no longer say Stanton. Staunton was incorporated as a village in 1859. It was incorporated as a city in 1891."


Staunton Township

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