Eatonia began in 1919 as a station on the Canadian National Railway. It was named for Timothy Eaton, founder of the Eaton's department store chain and catalogue, and to honour his son and heir, John Craig Eaton. At first the station was simply called Eaton, but people kept confusing it with nearby Eston, so in 1921 the name became Eatonia. That was also the name of an Eaton's brand for clothing and other goods, and "Eatonian" was what the company called its long-serving employees.
The community was incorporated as a town in 1954. The next year, Saskatchewan's Golden Jubilee, Eatonia's train station was pictured on the cover of the Eaton's catalogue, sending a well-known local image into homes across the country.
Today the former CN station houses the Eatonia Branch of the Wheatland Regional Library. Together with a train caboose and a wood-frame house ordered from the Eaton's catalogue in 1917, it forms the Eatonia Heritage Park, a Municipal Heritage Property at the south end of Main Street. The town sits at the crossroads of Highways 21 and 44, and its economy still rests almost entirely on agriculture.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Eatonia” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.