County Surveyor Thomas A. Gray, laid out the original plat of a town containing 286 lots in an 80 acre cornfield.
Some people say that the original name of the community was Huntsville.
But if it was, the new town soon became known as Litchfield, in honor of Electus Bachus Litchfield, a director of the Terre Haute and Alton Railroad. The town didn't just spring up to be the area's leading commercial center. It would take the coming of the railroad in 1856 to really set the boom to going. In 1855 there was a 3 to 1 vote against incorporating into a village. But in 1856, by a vote of 54 to 13, the effort was successfull and the town had its first government.